Hunter Biden defends his business dealings, but admits 'poor judgment'

WASHINGTON — Hunter Biden defended his involvement in foreign businesses but admitted that his last name was the likely reason he was offered to serve on a board of a Ukrainian natural gas company.

Biden, the 49-year-old son of former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, is at the center of President Donald Trump’s efforts to have Ukraine investigate his political rival. Those efforts by Trump has led to the Democrats in Congress to launch an impeachment inquiry.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the impeachment process started, Hunter Biden told ABC News that he used “poor judgment” even though he did nothing wrong.

“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,” Biden said in the interview.

“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,” Biden added. “So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever.”

When asked if he would have gotten the board position on Burisma, a Ukrainian oil company, if his last name was not Biden, he conceded that “probably not.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Probably not, in retrospect,” he 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.”

The younger Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian oil company from 2014 to 2019. Trump has asserted without evidence that Joe Biden used the power of the vice presidency to advance his son’s business interests by pressuring the Ukrainian government to fire the country’s prosecutor who, Trump baselessly claims, was investigating the oil company.

Trump has also insisted without evidence that Joe Biden again helped his son’s business interests in China. Hunter Biden announced earlier this month that he would step down from his board position on a Chinese private equity firm.

Trump is facing an impeachment inquiry over a July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during which he pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a leading political rival of Trump’s in the 2020 election.

In the wake of the Congress’ inquiry into Trump’s potential abuse of power, the White House released a near-transcript of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. Hunter Biden described reading it, telling ABC News that “like every other American — I was shocked.”

source: nbcnews.com