Earlier this week, a State Department official who formerly oversaw Ukraine policy told congressional investigators that he had brought forth concerns regarding the activities of then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden back in 2015. However, these concerns were spurned by Biden staffers, according to The Washington Post.
On Tuesday, George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of State, testified that he was concerned Hunter Biden’s board position at the Ukrainian firm Burisma Holdings would complicate U.S. diplomacy efforts in the country.
However, a Biden staffer responded to him saying that the vice president didn’t have the capacity to deal with Hunter Biden as his other son, Beau Biden, was battling cancer at the time.{mosads}
Kent is the first known career official who sounded an alarm during the Obama administration about Hunter Biden’s board position, the Post reports.
A former national security aide to Joe Biden told the Post that he didn’t remember hearing Kent’s complaint. When Joe Biden traveled to the Ukraine in December 2015 to give an anti-corruption speech, he didn’t view Hunter Biden as having “substantive impact” on the proceedings.
Additionally, Joe Biden claims that he never talked to Hunter Biden about any dealings in Ukraine whatsoever.
Joe Biden told reporters Wednesday that he had zero regrets on how things played out.
“No. No, I don’t,” he reportedly said. “Because I never discussed with my son anything having to do with what was going on in Ukraine. That’s a fact.”
According to the Post, Biden has come out and firmly said that no family member of his would have “any business relationship with anyone that relates to a foreign corporation or foreign country” if he were president.
“In my White House, none of my children or family have offices at the White House,” Biden said Wednesday.
“They will not be invited to sit in significant meetings of a Cabinet-level post, and they will have no foreign investment, and the reason to do that is not because of anything that went on in our administration,” he added.
“It is because of what Donald Trump has done.”
President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, both currently hold senior White House jobs.
The Biden campaign has been reportedly trying to move away from this specific narrative.
After Tuesday’s debate, Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, told the press “it’s been asked and answered.”
“Democratic voters know that these lies are not getting traction and it’s not the conversation they want to hear. And I think that was reflected in the fact that it was not a significant piece of the discussion.”