Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, is heard Wednesday by Republican elected officials who are leading an impeachment investigation against the president, accused of having lied to the American people about his family’s affairs.
• Read also: Joe Biden, 81, undergoes his annual medical examination
• Read also: Biden sanctioned on Gaza in Michigan vote
This investigation is dismissed out of hand by the Democrats, who see it as political maneuvering in the middle of an election year. It has almost no chance of succeeding.
The right accuses Joe Biden, so far without conclusive proof, of having used his influence when he was vice-president of Barack Obama (2009-2017) to allow his family to conduct questionable business in Ukraine and China .
Asked in Congress on Wednesday about a series of financial transactions which, according to Republicans, incriminate his father, Hunter Biden denied it outright.
“I never involved my father in my affairs,” he told the commission, according to a copy of his testimony. “Not when I was a lawyer, not in my investments or dealings here or abroad, not as a board member, not as an artist. Never.”
Younger son of the president, Hunter Biden, a businessman now converted to painting, has become over the years a favored target of Republicans who fuel suspicions about his affairs.
The Republicans’ investigation was, however, weakened by the indictment in mid-February of a former FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, prosecuted for having lied and fabricated false accusations of corruption against the Bidens.
This 43-year-old American-Israeli had accused Joe and Hunter Biden of having each received five million dollars in bribes to allow a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, to escape prosecution — a fabricated story of completely documented, according to the indictment.
Alexander Smirnov notably admitted to having relayed false information, provided by Russian intelligence services, in order to incriminate the Biden family.
The ongoing judicial investigation into the president’s son has so far failed to substantiate the Republicans’ accusations.
It especially highlighted his problems with addiction to drugs and alcohol – which the fifty-year-old claims to have overcome – and led to two indictments against him: one for tax evasion, and the other for illegal detention of firearm.
