Hunter Biden stepping down from Chinese firm, vows no foreign work if father wins in 2020
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden is reportedly stepping down from the board of a Chinese company and will not engage in any foreign work if his father is elected president in 2020.
“Hunter always understood that his father would be guided, entirely and unequivocally, by established U.S. policy, regardless of its effects on Hunter’s professional interests,” his lawyer George Mesires said in a statement, according to Bloomberg. “He never anticipated the barrage of false charges against both him and his father by the President of the United States.”
{mosads}“Under a Biden Administration, Hunter will readily comply with any and all guidelines or standards a President Biden may issue to address purported conflicts of interest, or the appearance of such conflicts, including any restrictions related to overseas business interests,” the statement continued. “He will continue to keep his father personally uninvolved in his business affairs.”
Hunter Biden said in the statement that he’ll resign from a private equity fund that’s backed by Chinese state-owned entities at the end of the month, according to Bloomberg. He currently serves on the board of BHR (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Company, an organization created in 2013 with the intention of investing Chinese capital outside the country.
Revelations that President Trump encouraged the leader of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden and his father helped lead House Democrats to launch an impeachment inquiry last month. Trump has also publicly called on China to investigate the Bidens.
China’s foreign ministry said earlier this month that Beijing would not open an investigation into the Biden family, adding that it had “no intention of intervening in the domestic affairs of the United States.”
Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani are facing mounting scrutiny from Democrats over their efforts persuade a foreign nation to investigate a top political opponent. A whistleblower complaint filed within intelligence community accused Trump of a broad campaign to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens over unfounded allegations of corruption.
Trump and his aides have sought to portray Joe Biden as corrupt over his work as vice president to dismiss former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating an energy company where Hunter Biden sat on the board at the time.
Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of Ukraine’s largest private gas companies, between 2014 and 2019.
Yuriy Lutsenko, who succeeded Shokin as Ukraine’s prosecutor general, also told The Washington Post last month that Hunter Biden “did not violate” anything” from the perspective of Ukrainian legislation.
“Hunter Biden cannot be responsible for violations of the management of Burisma that took place two years before his arrival,” he said.
“Despite extensive scrutiny, at no time has any law enforcement agency, either domestic or foreign, alleged that Hunter engaged in wrongdoing at any point during his five-year term,” the new statement from Hunter Biden’s lawyer said.
The statement also sought to push back against allegations the Trump campaign has floated about Hunter Biden’s work in China. Hunter Biden reportedly denied Trump’s claims that he procured $1.5 billion from China for a private equity fund after flying to Beijing in 2013 with his father.
Joe Biden has repeatedly condemned Trump in light of the president’s allegations about him and his son.
“To Trump and those who facilitate his abuses of power, and all the special interests funding his attacks against me: Please know that I’m not going anywhere,” the former vice president said in an op-ed in the Post. “You won’t destroy me, and you won’t destroy my family. And come November 2020, I intend to beat you like a drum.”
This report was updated at 9:48 a.m.
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