Under attack by Donald Trump, Hunter Biden says serving on Ukraine gas board was ‘poor judgment’
- But son of 2020 US presidential hopeful Joe Biden denies doing ‘anything improper’ in dealings with foreign company
- Trump’s efforts to get Ukrainian leader to investigate the Bidens are at centre of impeachment inquiry against him
Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, have repeatedly made discredited claims that Joe Biden used his position as the Obama administration’s point person on Ukraine to help quash an investigation in 2016 into the owner of one of the country’s largest private gas companies where Hunter sat on the board.
Trump’s efforts to get the newly elected government in Ukraine to investigate the Bidens are at the centre of an impeachment inquiry now being conducted by the House.
“I joined a board, I served honourably, I focused on corporate governance,” Hunter Biden told ABC. “I didn’t have any discussions with my father before or after I joined the board, as it relates to it, other than that brief exchange that we had.”
Hunter Biden served a five-year term on the board of Burisma, the owner of which had been under investigation for alleged money laundering and abuse of power. The allegations predated his joining the board in April of 2014. He stepped down earlier this year.
“Was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is a swamp in many ways?” Hunter Biden said in the interview. “Yeah. And so I take, I take full responsibility for that.”
He also said that while the Biden name has probably helped professionally during his life, there has been “a lot of misinformation” about his qualifications for his role on the board of the gas company.
A graduate of Yale Law School, Biden served as vice-chairman of the board of Amtrak from 2006 to 2009. He has also worked for the law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner.
“I think I had as much knowledge as anybody else that was on the board,” he said.
In a statement released through his lawyer on Sunday, Hunter Biden said he would resign from the board of BHR (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management, a Chinese-backed private equity company, and promised to forgo all foreign work if his father is elected president.
Trump, in a tweet on Tuesday, disparaged Hunter Biden’s interview.
The president’s claim that Hunter walked away with US$1.5 billion from China appears to be based on a fundraising target that BHR announced in 2014.
But BHR never raised a discreet pool of capital, according to the statement from Hunter Biden’s lawyer on Sunday, and instead raised money deal-by-deal. BHR now says it manages about US$2.1 billion in investments.
Biden denied he played a role in forming the company or having any equity in it while his father was vice-president. The board position was unpaid, he said.
After his father’s term ended in 2017, Biden bought 10 per cent of the management company for about US$420,000. He has not made money from the venture to date, according to the statement.
He announced he would resign from the BHR board by October 31.
