A U.S. senator Wednesday pressed a high-level member of President Joe Biden’s administration over his and his son Hunter’s ties with overseas energy companies.
“Do you think it was appropriate for Vice President Biden to conduct foreign policy in the Ukraine while an influential Ukrainian energy company called Burisma was paying his son a million dollars a year to serve on its board, or while a Russian billionaire was providing millions of dollars to Hunter Biden at the same time that Hunter Biden was apparently paying his father’s business – or living – expenses?” asked Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN).
Hagerty was questioning U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm during her Wednesday hearing with the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Granholm defended the president.
“I also know that President Biden is an incredibly ethical human being and would never do anything that would demonstrate a conflict of interest,” she said.
Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine have been a widely discussed topic since the elder Biden declared his run for president.
The younger Biden sat on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings beginning in 2014, and was paid a salary of at least $50,000 per month. He had no previous experience in the energy sector.
President Biden said that he never discussed Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine with his son, which turned out to be a lie. Emails published by The New York Post showed that in 2015, Hunter Biden introduced Burisma board advisor Vadym Pozharskyi to his father.
The elder Biden denied that the company and the country of Ukraine were trying to buy his loyalty by employing his son.
But Biden himself revealed at a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) event in 2018 that he pressured Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor who was looking into Burisma.
The then-vice president told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, or lose one billion dollars in foreign aid.
“I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden said at the event. “Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
Hagerty did not stop with the Biden family’s deep ties to Ukraine.
He pressed further, asking about the family’s ties to China.
“In 2021, while his father was president, Hunter Biden still owned an interest in BHR Partners. He owned that in partnership with Chinese Communist Party entities, and right after his dad, President Biden, met with Xi Jinping, it was announced by Hunter Biden’s lawyer that he’d divested his interest in that entity. Yet, no one’s given the details about when he divested it, how much profit he made. Do you think that’s appropriate?” Hagerty asked.
Granholm did not answer.
“I think the American public is very concerned about what may have transpired, and I think the Biden White House should be transparent to the American people about this. I appreciate your willingness to act in a transparent fashion, to deal with any potential conflict of interest on your own. I think you set an example for this administration. I wish the administration would live by its own, its own dictates, and actually be responsible in their own disclosures,” Hagerty said, as his time expired.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
