On Bidens and Ukraine, Wild Claims With Little Basis
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The phone call that led to the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump was supposed to cause a headache for his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,” Trump said during that July 25, 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, steering the conversation toward what Trump depicted as a scandal that could bring down Biden, now the Democratic nominee for president in the November election. When it comes to the Bidens and Ukraine, however, there’s little to back up the suspicions.
After his father became vice president in 2009, Hunter Biden, a lawyer by training, pursued business opportunities with foreign parties, often in ways that intersected with his father’s work. In 2014, Cyprus-registered Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas companies in Ukraine, announced that Hunter Biden was among several prominent foreigners who were joining its board. The company said that Hunter Biden would advise on “transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities.” He remained on the board until earlier this year, and court records suggest he was earning at least $50,000 a month for his service.
