Hunter Biden Says He Wouldn't Take the Ukraine Job if He Could Do it All Over Again
Hunter Biden readily admits to using alcohol and drugs in his new memoir, “Beautiful Things,” but President Joe Biden’s son gets combative when mentioning his former gig with the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings.
In a summary and excerpts published by the Los Angeles Times, he said he would not take a seat on the company’s board if he could do it all over again, but not because he thinks he did anything wrong.
Hunter Biden joined the board in 2014, while his father was still vice president under then-President Barack Obama, and reportedly was paid as much as $50,000 per month.
In time, Burisma became a target for an anti-corruption investigation, and Joe Biden later boasted that his pressure helped force Ukrainian officials to fire the prosecutor targeting Burisma.
FLASHBACK: Two years ago, Joe Biden bragged about holding up $1 BILLION in U.S. loans unless Ukraine fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma, the corrupt company paying Hunter $80k+ per month.
Why don’t Democrats want to investigate that??pic.twitter.com/bDhaKjFNZN
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) January 24, 2020
Hunter Biden’s business entanglements became campaign fodder for then-President Donald Trump as Joe Biden entered the presidential campaign.
Files discovered on a laptop computer that was once owned by Hunter Biden provided tantalizing but inconclusive hints that he had capitalized on his family connections and had introduced at least one Ukrainian businessman to his father.
“Knowing all of that now: No, I would not do it again,” Hunter Biden wrote of his work in Ukraine.
However, he made it clear in the memoir that he doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
“I wouldn’t take the seat on Burisma’s board. Trump would have to look elsewhere to find a suitable distraction for his impeachable behavior,” he wrote.
Hunter Biden said his conduct was blameless but that became irrelevant in a political campaign.
“I did nothing unethical, and have never been charged with wrongdoing,” he wrote, according to the Times.
Hunter Biden is the subject of what has been called a tax investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware.
“In our current political environment, I don’t believe it would make any difference if I took that seat or not. I’d be attacked anyway,” he wrote.
He said Trump and other Republicans who criticized him were only using him.
“What I do believe, in this current climate, is that it wouldn’t matter what I did or didn’t do,” he wrote. “The attacks weren’t intended for me. They were meant to wound my dad.”
The memoir paints a different picture than did an interim report issued last year by the Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees.
The report from Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa said that “the Obama administration knew that Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board was problematic and did interfere in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine.”
“Moreover, this investigation has illustrated the extent to which officials within the Obama administration ignored the glaring warning signs when the vice president’s son joined the board of a company owned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch. And, as will be discussed in later sections, Hunter Biden was not the only Biden who cashed in on Joe Biden’s vice presidency,” it said.
“This report not only details examples of extensive and complex financial transactions involving the Bidens, it also describes the quandary other U.S. governmental officials faced as they attempted to guide and support Ukraine’s anticorruption efforts.”
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