Hunter Biden says joining board of Ukraine’s Burisma wasn’t a mistake
- The US president’s son said his only error was ‘underestimating’ how it would be used against him
- The 51-year-old’s involvement in the natural gas company became a lightning rod during the 2020 presidential campaign
In wide-ranging interview with CBS News’ “Sunday Morning,” the younger Biden said that he did nothing wrong in taking the lucrative position with Cyprus-registered Burisma Holdings. His only error was “underestimating” how it would be used against him, he said, according to a transcript of the interview.
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The younger Biden said no investigation has concluded that he did “anything wrong, or that my father did anything wrong.”
He said in December that he is facing a federal investigation related to his foreign business dealings. The president has said he will not interfere in the Justice Department’s prosecutorial decisions.
Responding to a question about a related controversy, Biden said that a laptop reported to have been left in a Delaware repair shop in 2019 could have been his, although he wasn’t sure.
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The New York Post reported in October 2020 that emails on that computer detailed dodgy dealings in Ukraine, CBS recounted in the interview – a fresh bombshell weeks before the presidential election.
“There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me,” he said. “It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was the – that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me. Or that there was a laptop stolen from me.”
The younger Biden also detailed his relationship with his father, who he said never stopped supporting him even as he battled substance abuse for years. “You’re not fine,” Hunter recalls his father telling him at one point in what amounted to an attempted intervention.
Hunter told CBS correspondent Tracy Smith that he is now sober and has turned a corner from the addiction that at one point involved staying awake for 13 straight days while he drank vodka and smoked crack cocaine.
“I spent more time on my hands and knees picking through rugs – smoking anything that re – even closely – even remotely resembled crack cocaine. I – I – I probably smoked more Parmesan cheese than … anyone that you know,” he said.
