Hunter Biden breaks his silence on Ukraine, admits to ‘poor judgment’
Hunter Biden insisted he “did nothing wrong” but conceded he displayed “poor judgment” in his work for a Ukrainian gas company — a lucrative gig President Trump has hammered him and his father over.
“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part,” Hunter said in an ABC News interview Tuesday, noting how it has hurt his father’s political aspirations. Former vice president Joe Biden has slipped in the polls recently as Trump ties him to his son’s business dealings.
“I gave a hook to some very unethical people to act in illegal ways to try to do some harm to my father. That’s where I made the mistake,” Hunter added, breaking his silence over the scandal for the first time. “So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever.”
Hunter’s time on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma is at the center of the impeachment inquiry into Trump, who is alleged to have pushed Ukraine’s leader to investigate the Bidens ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
As vice president in 2016, Joe Biden reportedly threatened to freeze $1 billion of U.S. aid to Ukraine if the foreign leaders didn’t fire the nation’s top prosecutor. Trump told Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a call, according to notes provided by the White House: “I would like for you to do us a favor … There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.”
Hunter told ABC that he did not discuss his foreign business dealings with his father.
“I joined a board, I served honorably. I focused on corporate governance,” Hunter said. “I didn’t have any discussions with my father before or after I joined the board as it related to it, other than that brief exchange that we had.” He added he did “nothing wrong at all.”
Days before Trump reportedly pressed Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens, Trump froze nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine. The president has insisted he did nothing wrong and denied that any request for help was tied to the aid freeze.
Trump tweeted after the ABC interview, “Hunter Biden was really bad on @GMA. Now Sleepy Joe has real problems! Reminds me of Crooked Hillary and her 33,000 deleted Emails, not recoverable!”
Tuesday’s interview was an attempt by the Biden campaign to put this issue to rest, said Republican strategist Ryan Williams.
“I don’t think it was successful,” Williams told the Herald. “This is a controversy that will linger and continue to come up. Trump won’t let it go away.”
Hunter in the interview also admitted he probably would not have been asked to serve on the Ukrainian board if not for his name.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn’t Biden,” he said.
Herald wire services contributed to this report.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2ITw7ia
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