Michael Hernandez
15 October 2019•Update: 16 October 2019
WASHINGTON
Hunter Biden acknowledged in remarks broadcast Tuesday he demonstrated "poor judgment" in his private business dealings, but denied any wrongdoing.
"In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part," the son of former Vice President Joe Biden said during an interview with ABC News. "Was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is a swamp in many ways? Yeah. And so I take full responsibility for that."
"Did I do anything improper? No. Not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever. I joined a board, I served honorably. I focused on corporate governance," he added.
But the junior Biden acknowledged he probably would not have been selected to join the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukraine-based gas company, had he not shared the same surname as his father.
He pledged over the weekend not to serve on the board, or work on behalf of any foreign entities if his father, a leading 2020 Democratic president candidate, is elected president.
“I’m taking it off the table,” he said. “I'm making that commitment. Let’s see if anybody else makes that commitment. But that's the commitment that I'm making.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has continued to lambast the Bidens over uncorroborated claims of corruption, and has publicly requested Ukraine's top officials probe the Bidens.
At issue is the elder Biden's successful effort to oust Ukraine former top prosecutor Viktor Shokin who was removed from his post in 2016. While his ouster was sought by many western European nations and the International Monetary Fund, all of whom were seeking to reign in corruption in Ukraine, Shokin was at the time probing Burisma, the company on which Hunter Biden served.
Trump's efforts to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the elder Biden, a political rival heading into next year's presidential elections, have been the foundation for the House of Representatives ongoing impeachment inquiry.
A whistleblower complaint that has been made public lays out Trump's repeated requests to Zelensky to probe the Bidens during a July 25 call, requests Trump later confirmed he made.
Trump has further publicly requested China investigate the Bidens on claims of corruption.
