Hunter Biden, the son of the former Vice President, acknowledged having “poor judgment” in deciding to taking a position on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company on Monday — but firmly denied having done anything wrong.
President Donald Trump has called for scrutiny of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings — an interest which critics say drove him to pressure Ukraine to investigate both Joe and Hunter Biden. Trump has continued to demand that the Bidens be investigated for corruption in the weeks since House Democrats launched a formal impeachment inquiry following a whistleblower complaint that accused the President of pushing Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 elections.
Speaking on Good Morning America, Hunter Biden declared that while he had shown poor judgment “in retrospect,” he did not make a mistake based on an “ethical lapse.”
“It was poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is a — it’s a swamp in many ways? Yeah. And so, I take full responsibility for that. Do I, did I do anything improper? No, and not in any way,” Biden said. He said that he could not have foreseen a President and a “Rudy Giuliani” would pay attention to a “conspiracy idea”
However, he acknowledged that he likely would not have been appointed to the board if he hadn’t been the son of Joe Biden. “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,” he said.
The former Vice President, who is set to appear in the fourth Democratic debate later on Tuesday, has also denied that his son behaved inappropriately, and has instead depicted the President’s allegations as an attempt by Trump to discredit one of his most formidable 2020 opponents.
Hunter Biden’s interview comes two days after an attorney announced he had resigned from a position on a Chinese-backed private equity firm’s board of directors.
Ukraine’s new prosecutor general announced last month that he will review all cases closed by his predecessor, which would include cases related to Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of the company where Hunter Biden worked, according to the Associated Press. However, Ukraine has presented no evidence against either Biden.
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