johnsolomon | In recent interviews, Joe Biden has distanced himself from
his son’s work at a Ukrainian gas company that was under investigation during the
Obama years, with the former
vice president suggesting he didn’t even
know Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings.
There is plenty of evidence that conflicts with the former vice
president’s account, including Hunter
Biden’s own story that he discussed the company once with his famous father.
There also was a December
2015 New York Times story that raised the question of whether Hunter Biden’s
role at Burisma posed a conflict of interest for the vice president, especially
when Joe Biden was leading the fight against Ukrainian corruption while Hunter
Biden’s firm was under investigation by Ukrainian prosecutors.
But whatever the Biden family recollections, the Obama State
Department clearly saw the Burisma Holdings investigation in the midst of the
2016 presidential election as a Joe Biden issue.
Memos newly released through a Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit filed by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on my behalf detail how State
officials in June 2016 worked to prepare the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine,
Marie Yovanovitch, to handle a question about “Burisma and Hunter Biden.”
In multiple drafts of a question-and-answer
memo prepared for Yovanovitch’s Senate confirmation hearing, the department’s
Ukraine experts urged the incoming ambassador to stick to a simple answer.
“Do you have any comment on Hunter Biden, the Vice President’s
son, serving on the board of Burisma, a major Ukrainian Gas Company?,” the draft Q&A
asked.
The recommended answer for Yovanovitch: “For questions on Hunter
Biden’s role in Burisma, I would refer you to Vice President Biden’s
office.”
