Hunter Biden is stepping down from the board of a Chinese-backed private equity company and promising to forego all foreign work if his father, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, is elected president in 2020.
After months of keeping a relatively low-profile as President Donald Trump leveled a barrage of unsubstantiated accusations of corruption at him, the younger Biden is publicly vowing to avoid any conflict of interest.
According to a statement released on his behalf by his lawyer George Mesires, Biden said he’ll resign at the end of the month from the management company of a private equity fund that’s backed by Chinese state-owned entities. He also pledged that he wouldn’t work for any foreign-owned companies or serve on their boards during a potential Biden administration. He reiterated that he never discussed his business activities with his father.
“Hunter always understood that his father would be guided, entirely and unequivocally, by established U.S. policy, regardless of its effects on Hunter’s professional interests,” the statement said. “He never anticipated the barrage of false charges against both him and his father by the President of the United States.”
“He should have done this quite a while ago,” senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway said on Sunday on Fox News Business. “In fact, he probably shouldn’t have been on the board to begin with.”
“I think this is just another way to save a flailing campaign that’s going down. He knows he’s in trouble and this is just another way to try and detract attention,” Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani have repeatedly claimed, without providing evidence, that Hunter Biden made millions of dollars from China while his father was vice president. They’ve also made unsubstantiated claims that Joe Biden used his position as the U.S. administration’s point person on Ukraine to help quash an investigation in 2016 into the owner of one of the country’s largest private gas companies where Hunter sat on the board.
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Expert: Hunter Biden Likely Still Has Millions in China-Backed Investment Fund
Hunter Biden has a 10 percent stake in BHR, which he acquired through a company he created named Skaneateles LLC in 2017.
Although Hunter Biden’s lawyer has said that his client’s stake in the company is only valued at $420,000, a FactCheck.org analysis estimates it’s value to be millions.
“It is difficult to imagine, if not incomprehensible, that a 10% stake in those economics is worth only $420K,” Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business told FactCheck.org. “The distinction they appear to be making is they capitalized the management company with $4.2 M even if the fund manages $2 B. The value of that management company is likely far in excess of $4.2 M if they are managing $2 B.”
