'Hunter' alert in '15
State Dept. big’s ‘conflict’ concern
A State Department expert on Ukraine told House impeachment investigators this week that he raised concerns about Hunter Biden’s job at a Ukrainian natural-gas firm in 2015 — but that dad Joe Biden’s staff blew him off because the thenveep was preoccupied with his other son Beau’s cancer battle, a report said on Friday.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent said he feared Hunter’s position on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma could complicate US diplomatic efforts in the country, Fox News reported.
Kent (inset) said he also raised conflict-of-interest concerns since the elder Biden was spearheading the Obama administration’s efforts to fight corruption in Ukraine, according to the report.
Kent feared Hunter Biden’s position would make Ukrainian officials believe he was a back channel to his father, Fox reported.
Joe Biden’s campaign responded on Friday by ripping President Trump, who has repeatedly accused him and Hunter of corruption.
“Donald Trump’s unprecedentedly corrupt administration is melting down because of the scandal he touched off by trying to get Ukraine to lie about Joe Biden — and as the vice president said yesterday, he should release his tax returns or shut up,” a Biden campaign spokesman told Fox.
“On Joe Biden’s watch, the US made eradicating corruption a centerpiece of our policies toward Ukraine, including achieving the removal of an inept prosecutor who shielded wrongdoers from accountability.”
The House started an impeachment inquiry last month after a whistleblower reported that Trump demanded Ukraine investigate the Bidens in order to get US military aide.
Sources also told Fox News that Kent told congressional investigators about the Obama administration’s efforts to remove Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin.
Joe Biden once boasted that when he was vice president and leading the administration’s Ukraine policy, he pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin.
The Bidens and their allies say Shokin’s firing had nothing to do with Hunter but was about Joe Biden and the Obama administration’s concern that Shokin himself was corrupt.
The EU and IMF also wanted Shokin gone. Kent testified that Shokin faced accusations of corruption.
Hunter Biden said this week that he showed poor judgment by taking the Burisma gig, which paid him up to $50,000 a month, and he admitted he would not have gotten the job if his name weren’t Biden.