Joe Biden is still refusing to discuss an exposé by the New York Post alleging the former vice president’s youngest son, Hunter, leveraged his ties to the Obama administration for the benefit of a Ukrainian natural gas conglomerate.
The Democrat nominee, who has long struggled to explain his son’s overseas business deals, was asked about the story during a campaign swing through North Carolina on Sunday. Biden, in particular, was asked by a reporter if he had any comment about revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had seized Hunter’s laptop last year via subpoena.
Video of Biden’s encounter, which was shared on social media by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, shows that the Democrat nominee refused to even listen to the reporter’s question, opting to walk away as soon as the reporter mentions the word “FBI.”
WATCH: Joe Biden refuses to answer a question about the FBI seizing his son Hunter's laptop last year.
The laptop contained emails about the Biden family receiving money from China and other foreign sources. https://t.co/EoGvdS7eUt pic.twitter.com/VCtocB3Br8
— Trump War Room – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) October 18, 2020
Earlier this week the Post reported that it had obtained emails from a laptop that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden. The laptop was supposedly dropped off by Hunter at a local computer repair shop in Delaware in April 2019 after being subject to water damage. When no one returned to pick it up, a technician at the shop claims to have gone through the hard drive sometime in the summer of 2019 and proceeded to share it with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
FBI investigators seized the laptop in December of last year as part of an ongoing investigation into foreign election interference. It remains unclear if the laptop, and its corresponding content, is authentic.
On Wednesday, one of the emails published by the Post, in particular, stirred national attention. The email, purportedly exchanged between Hunter and an executive with the Ukrainian-based natural gas conglomerate Burisma Holdings, alleges that a meeting took place between the former vice president and a representative of the company in 2015.
The meeting supposedly took place nearly a year after Hunter had joined Burisma’s board of directors. At the time, Burisma was facing heavy pressure from both the Ukrainian government and U.S. diplomatic officials over allegations of corruption. Adding to the potential perception of a conflict of interest, provided the meeting did take place, is that at the time the former vice president was the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine.
Since the Post’s exposé, the former vice president, himself, has refused to comment on the matter. Biden has stuck to that strategy even as his campaign has suggested that although no official meeting with the Burisma representative may have taken place, it may have occurred in an unofficial capacity.
“Biden’s campaign would not rule out the possibility that the former VP had some kind of informal interaction with [the representative] which wouldn’t appear on Biden’s official schedule,”
Story cited here.
