President Donald Trump’s campaign released a new ad on Wednesday highlighting how Hunter Biden’s lucrative business dealings overseas have intersected with his father’s political influence.
The ad, which is simply titled, “Hunter,” intermixes segments of an October 2019 interview Biden did with ABC News, in which he admitted that a number of business ventures came about solelybecause of his family name, with details about some of the dealings. Trump’s ad, in particular, focuses on Biden’s work with Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas conglomerate, and an equity firm with investments from entities tied to the People’s Republic of China.
“The question is not why Hunter Biden used his name to get these gigs,” the ad’s narrator states. “The question is why Joe Biden let him do it?”
Trump’s ad comes shortly after the New York Post published an exposé indicating that Burisma had sought to leverage Biden’s connections to receive favorable treatment from the government of Ukraine.
As Breitbart News has previously reported, Biden joined Burisma’s board of directors in April 2014 shortly after his father was tapped to be the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine. Despite having no background in either eastern Europe or the energy industry, Biden was paid as much $83,000 per month for his services.
Adding to concerns was that he joined the company at a time when it was actively courting western leaders to prevent scrutiny of its business practices. The same month that Biden was tapped for Burisma’s board, Mykola Zlochevsky, the firm’s founder, had his assets frozen in the United Kingdom on suspicion of money laundering. A Ukrainian official with ties to Zlochevsky admitted in October 2019 the only reason Biden received his appointment with Burisma was to “protect” the company from foreign scrutiny.
Zlochevsky eventually succeeded in having assets unfrozen by allegedly paying a $7 million bribe to Ukraine’s then-prosecutor general in December 2014, according to testimony Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent delivered to Congress earlier this year. Kent, who was then serving as the deputy chief of mission in Ukraine, only became aware of Hunter Biden’s role with Burisma after the bribe was supposedly paid and raised concerns with his superiors in the Obama-era State Department over the perception of a conflict of interest.
It is in the context of Burisma and Zlochevsky’s legal troubles that Joe Biden’s influence has raised red flags. The former vice president has particularly drawn questions over his conduct in demanding the Ukrainian government fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in 2016. The demand for Shokin’s ouster was tied to more than $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees.
Emails published by the Post on Wednesday, which the paper says came from an old laptop that supposedly belonged to Biden, show that Burisma had sought “advice on how [Hunter] could use [his] influence” to help the company deal with problems in Ukraine as early as May 2014.
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