Biden: Efforts to Get Son Hunter ‘Foul Play’

“It’s used to get to me, I think it’s kind of a foul play, but look it is what it is and he’s a grown man. He is the smartest man I know in pure, intellectual capacity, and as long as he’s good, we’re good.”

— President-elect Biden told Stephen Colbert said that he considered political efforts to target his son, Hunter Biden, “kind of a foul play.”

Timeline: Hunter Biden, Burisma and the Trump Ukrainian Scandal

Hunter Biden

Key Points: Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors of Burisma, a Ukainian energy company, in April 2014. His five-year term ended in April this year.

Burisma was founded in 2002 by Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky. In 2010, Zlochevsky was appointed minister of ecology and finance under newly elected pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovich.

There appears to be an inherent conflict of interest in the appointment of an energy baron to head the Ecology and Finance Ministry, and Zlochevsky and Burisma have been investigated many times over the years for tax violations, money-laundering and self-dealing via the ministry.

In 2016, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko stated that there was never a hint that either Hunter Biden or Joe Biden did anything wrong in relation to Burisma. He repeated this in a May 16, 2019, interview with Bloomberg News. “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws — at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing,” Lutsenko said, “A company can pay however much it wants to its board.”

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