Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine a conflict, Senate panels find
WASHINGTON — Two Senate committees issued a report Wednesday alleging that the work Joe Biden’s son did in Ukraine constituted a conflict of interest for the Obama administration at a time when Biden was engaged in Ukraine policy as vice president.
The report did not implicate Biden in wrongdoing, focusing instead on his son, Hunter, who it said “cashed in” on his father’s position by joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company. The document says that work created conflict-of-interest concerns, including among two Obama administration officials.
Biden’s campaign immediately panned the report as an effort by an ally of Trump’s to damage his election opponent. The campaign said the investigation was founded on “a long-disproven, hardcore rightwing conspiracy theory” and, even before the report was released, issued a detailed statement aiming to rebut point-by-point allegations that it said had long been debunked by media organizations as well as by U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
The investigation, from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Finance Committee, produced stark political divisions. Democrats have accused Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, the Homeland Security chairman, of a politically motivated initiative at a time when they say the committee should be focused on the pandemic response and other, less partisan issues.
Johnson has acknowledged in interviews that he hoped to complete the report before the election, telling The Associated Press last month that the “American people deserve the truth” about his probe. But he has also been on the defensive over Democratic accusations that his investigation was serving to amplify Russian disinformation.
After the report was released Wednesday, Johnson defended the probe to reporters as “a good investigation” by two committees with jurisdiction over corruption and conflicts of interest.
In scrutinizing Hunter Biden’s financial dealings, the report details extensive payments to business interests from entities in Ukraine, Russia, and China that its authors say raise counterintelligence and extortion concerns.
But the crux of the document is that Hunter Biden’s lucrative involvement with the gas company Burisma posed a conflict of interest because Biden was vice president at the time and dealing with Ukraine policy.
It cites concerns from two officials, including one, George Kent, who was among the witnesses at impeachment proceedings against Trump last year. In one 2016 email, Kent, the former acting deputy chief of mission at the Kyiv embassy, described Hunter Biden’s presence on the Burisma board as “very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine.”
But the report also quotes Kent as telling lawmakers that there was never an occasion in which the embassy made a decision “where we took the presence of a private citizen on the board into account.”
Another State Department official, Amos Hochstein, is described in the report as having raised concerns directly to Biden because he was concerned Russians were using his son’s role with the company to sow disinformation. Biden did not take action, the report says.
The report says that though State Department officials regarded the head of the company, Mykola Zlochevsky, as corrupt, Biden did not confront him or link him to corruption.
“What the chairmen discovered during the course of this investigation is that the Obama administration knew that Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board was problematic and did interfere in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine,” the report says.
Even so, the report acknowledges that the extent to which Hunter Biden’s board position affected Ukraine policy is “not clear.” It does not suggest that specific policy decisions were influenced by Biden’s position.
Both Bidens have denied wrongdoing, and Hunter Biden has denied using his influence with his father to aid Burisma.