Hunter Biden breaks silence on foreign dealings
Hunter Biden defended his business dealings in Ukraine while his father, Joe Biden, was vice president — saying in a new interview that he “did nothing wrong at all,” but conceding that he displayed “poor judgment.”
“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part. Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don’t believe now, when I look back on it — I know that there was — did nothing wrong at all,” the younger Biden told ABC News in a weekend interview that aired Tuesday.
“However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is — it — it’s — it’s a swamp in — in — in many ways? Yeah,” the 49-year-old added.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched an impeachment inquiry after a whistleblower’s complaint showed that President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate, and his son, who worked for Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company.
Trump alleges that the elder Biden as vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine unless it fired its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who had probed Burisma’s oligarch owner.
Democrats charged that the commander-in-chief offered a quid pro quo of military aid if Zelensky would investigate the Bidens. There’s no evidence that the father and son did anything wrong.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, has announced that his client will resign from the board of Chinese-backed BHR Equity Investment Fund Management by Oct. 31.
He added that Hunter would not serve on the boards of foreign-owned companies if his father wins the 2020 presidential election.
In his interview on ABC News, Hunter said he “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.”
He added: “So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever.”
The president has leveled a volley of accusations, without offering evidence, against Hunter Biden for his work on Burisma’s board, earning $50,000 a month.
During a rally Thursday night, Trump repeatedly asked where the younger Biden was.
”Joe’s son Hunter got thrown out of the Navy and then he became a genius on Wall Street in about two days,” Trump said.
“Whatever happened to Hunter? Where the hell is he?” he added. “Where’s Hunter?”
Hunter responded during an interview at his Los Angeles home by saying: “I’m here. I’m here and I’m working and I’m living my life. Hiding in plain sight, I guess.”
He also defended his work for the company.
“I joined a board, I served honorably. I did — I focused on corporate governance. 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 said.
Hunter told ABC News that while he does not specifically regret his business ventures, he wishes he had anticipated future attacks from his father’s political rivals.
“What I regret is not taking into account that there would be a Rudy Giuliani and a president of the United States that would be listening to this — this ridiculous conspiracy idea,” he said, referring to Trump’s personal attorney.
When a rough transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky revealed the president’s repeated references to the Bidens, Hunter described his reaction as being “like every other American — I was shocked.”
Shortly after reading the transcript released by the White House, Hunter said he called his father, who asked him about his daughter, Maisy, before getting into the big news.
“For real. And that’s not a joke. I mean, and then discussion was literally like, ‘Oh my gosh,’” the younger Biden told the network, describing their mutual shock at the nature of the call’s transcript.
“But other than that, really, I want to make it clear, it’s not like anybody has to have any discussion beyond that,” he said, adding that he never discussed his foreign business matters with his dad.
In his scathing attacks, Trump mocked Hunter, who struggled for years with alcohol and drug abuse and was discharged from the Naval Reserve after failing a drug test.
Calling him unqualified for the position with the energy company, the president has declared that Hunter Biden was “not too smart” and added, “Hunter, you’re a loser.”
Hunter said “there’s been a lot of misinformation about me … by this idea that I was unqualified to be on the board.”
“I was vice chairman of the board of Amtrak for five years,” he told ABC News. “I was the chairman of the board of the UN World Food Program. I was a lawyer for Boies Schiller Flexner, one of the most prestigious law firms in — in the world.”
He added: “I think that I had as much knowledge as anybody else that was on the board — if not more.”
But Hunter acknowledged that his last name likely played a role in his Burisma board appointment.
“If your last name wasn’t Biden,” ABC’s Amy Robach asked, “do you think you would’ve been asked to be on the board of Burisma?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Probably not, in retrospect,” Hunter said. “But that’s — you know — I don’t think that there’s a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn’t Biden.
“Because my dad was vice president of the United States. There’s literally nothing, as a young man or as a full-grown adult that — my father in some way hasn’t had influence over. It does not serve either one of us,” Biden continued.
Trump also has targeted Hunter’s Chinese business venture — and has called on Beijing to launch a probe into the matter.
“The Biden family was PAID OFF, pure and simple!” the president tweeted this month as he and his allies have accused the younger Biden of banking $1.5 billion from the joint investment firm — a figure Hunter called “crazy” and said “has no basis in fact in any way.”
Reports have indicated that Hunter’s company sought to raise $1.5 billion from the deal — not that either he or his firm pocketed $1.5 billion from the deal.
“They feel like they have the license to go out and say whatever they want,” he said. “It’s insane to even — it feels to me like living in some kind of, you know, ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ where you’re up on the real world and then you fall down the rabbit hole, and, you know, the president’s the Cheshire Cat asking you questions about crazy things that don’t bear any resemblance to the reality of anything that has to do with me.”
Despite the swirling controversy, Hunter insisted that the attention on his foreign business ventures won’t harm his father’s campaign in the long run.
“I think that they know who my dad is, and I think that they know that my dad is not Donald Trump,” he told ABC. “I certainly hope that there is no negative political ramifications of this. I think that the truth always wins.”
Hunter also said his relationship with his father remains strong as he weathers the storm.
“My dad doesn’t have to defend me. My dad only has to love me. And my dad loves me unequivocally,” he said. “And so [that is] one thing that he doesn’t have to get involved in because he knows that I am my own man and that I’m strong enough.”
He added about his dad: “As it relates to whether he can take on Donald Trump, absolutely. But my dad doesn’t go after other people’s kids. He just doesn’t. Never has.”
Hunter insisted that he doesn’t care about Trump’s vitriolic attacks.
“Being the subject of Donald Trump’s ire is a feather in my cap. It’s not something that I go to bed nervous about at night at all. The reason I’m able to do that is because I am absolutely enveloped in love of my family,” he said.
“They’ll never understand the level for how much I love my dad and how much he loves me,” he said, adding, “They’re out of a B movie. I mean, they really are.
“I’ve been through some s— — stuff in my life. I’ve been through some real, real stuff. This isn’t real stuff. It isn’t. It truly isn’t. That part of it, that Barnum and Bailey — you know, say anything, do anything you want, you know, I mean, like, you know, Donald Prince Humperdinck — Trump Jr. is not somebody that I really care about,” he continued.
He did acknowledge that he worries that the glaring spotlight on his personal life could undermine his sobriety.
“Like every single person that I’ve ever known, I have fallen and I’ve gotten up. I’ve done esteemable things and things that are — have been in my life that I — that — that I regret,” he said.
“Every single one of those things has brought me exactly to where I am right now, which is probably the best place I’ve ever been in my life.”