WASHINGTON ― For years, Republican members of Congress have described the president’s son as a corrupt wastrel with no business on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
On Wednesday, Hunter Biden came to Capitol Hill and told Republicans that not only was he qualified for his job with Burisma, but he had a more impressive business background than any of them.
“You guys have gone out and said I had no credibility, no ― that there’s no way that I should’ve been serving on the board of Burisma,” Biden said, according to a transcript released Thursday.
“I just read you my resume,” he said. “I’d put my resume up against any of you, in terms of my responsibility.”
It was one of several combative moments from a seven-hour deposition Republicans held Wednesday as part of their impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. Republicans have not uncovered any official wrongdoing by the president despite months of searching for bribes and improper participation in his son’s business deals.
The younger Biden created an instant controversy when he took a high-paying position on Burisma’s board in 2014, while his father, then the vice president, served as the face of U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine.
State Department officials privately complained that the job created the appearance of a conflict of interest, and Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to announce an investigation, withholding military aid in an extortion scheme that triggered his first impeachment. Those same officials said, however, that Biden’s Burisma job had no effect on U.S. foreign policy.
Republicans have resurrected Trump’s corruption allegations and made them Exhibit A in their impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, claiming his son was useless to Burisma except as a conduit for bribes to his father.
The younger Biden has admitted his last name helped him get the board position, saying it helped Burisma send a message to Vladimir Putin, who had launched an invasion of Ukraine. But he’s also insisted that he was qualified ― and he seemed to relish the chance to say so to Republicans directly.
“I don’t know anybody that was, at that time, that was teaching the No. 1 rated course at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in the master’s program in terms of foreign policy and advocacy,” Hunter Biden said. “I literally was on 17 ― like, 12 different boards. I only listed like, you know, 10 of them. And so I had an enormous amount of reasons to be on it.”
He repeatedly asked his own questions during the deposition. In response to queries about his father meeting his business associates for dinner, he asked Republicans if they had a problem with Donald Trump’s son-in-law landing a $2 billion deal with the Saudi government shortly after serving as an advisor to the president.
“When Jared Kushner flies over to Saudi Arabia, picks up $2 billion, comes back, and puts it in his pocket, OK, and he is running for president of the United States, you guys have any problem with that?”
(Democrats claimed that several Republicans nodded in agreement in response to the Kushner remark.)
When Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) asked if Biden was on drugs when he was on the Burisma board, Biden asked a loaded question of his own.
“Mr. Gaetz, look me in the eye. You really think that’s appropriate to ask me?”
“Absolutely,” Gaetz said.
“Of all the people sitting around this table, do you think that’s appropriate to ask me?” Biden said, seemingly alluding to allegations of drug use that have swirled around Gaetz.
Biden detailed his addiction to crack cocaine in his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things,” but Gaetz has apparently not read the book.
“I was an addict. I have been in recovery for over 4 1/2 years now, Mr. Gaetz,” Biden said. “Yes, I was an addict. What does that have to do with whether or not you’re going to go forward with an impeachment of my father other than to simply try to embarrass me?”
As for Burisma, Biden said he brought expertise on corporate governance to a company that wanted to elevate its financial standards.
“My responsibilities were like any other board member, to attend board meetings, to be aware of what the management was doing to try to strive for, you know, accountability, transparency, openness in terms of the reporting, to go through the financials and make certain that the financials were certified by a [certified public accountant],” Biden said.
Biden initially refused to sit for a closed-door deposition when Republicans sent him a subpoena last year, insisting instead on public testimony, before changing his mind and sitting for Wednesday’s interview.
House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said this week that he still wants to have a public hearing, but it’s not clear if Biden remains willing. Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, noted in a statement after the deposition that the source of a key bribery allegation has been charged with fabricating the claim and lying to the FBI.
“This illegitimate inquiry should have ended long before their star witness was indicted for lying but it wasn’t,” Lowell said. “Now that Hunter has put this partisan conspiracy to the lie that it is ― on the record and under oath ― this political charade should finally come to an end.”