The president’s son Hunter Biden recently appeared for a Congressional deposition with the involvement of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, and the subsequently released transcript shows the younger Biden decisively rebutting ideas that his father was meaningfully involved in his business activities. Republicans are in the middle of an impeachment inquiry targeting the president.
The topic of discussion amid Hunter Biden’s wide-ranging deposition was a prospective get-together over lunch in years past when Joe Biden was neither in office nor actively seeking it. Joe apparently didn’t end up joining.
A questioner seemingly on staff with a participating committee told Hunter the “whole thing is that the former Vice President is coming to meet potential” — and though they were cut off there, context suggests they were intending to reference potential business partners.
“But he didn’t, number one. You know that he didn’t,” Hunter explained. “Number two is that you know that I never involved him in any of my business. Number three is he never benefited from any of my business. Number four, you know there are no evidence of any transactions in which I sent money for my dad or my dad took action to benefit me or any of my businesses. You know all of those things.”
Hunter also emphasized that these circumstances developed while his father was firmly outside of public office. Compare that scenario to details publicized by House Democrats indicating extensive, foreign government-tied payments for Trump business entities including his defunct D.C. hotel while Trump was in office as president.
The younger Biden asserted earlier in the deposition — during his opening statements — that what he was saying “should end” the “false premise” driving the investigation.
“I am here today to provide the committees with the one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business, not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions, domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist, never,” Hunter said.