Joe, Hunter Biden seen golfing with Ukraine gas company exec back in 2014, photo shows
EXCLUSIVE: A photo obtained by Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" shows former Vice President Joe Biden
and his son Hunter golfing in the Hamptons with Devon Archer, who
served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma
Holdings with Hunter.
Earlier this month, Joe Biden told Fox News in Iowa that he never discussed his son’s foreign business dealings with him.
“I
have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,”
Biden said, pointing the finger at President Trump. “I know Trump
deserves to be investigated. He is violating every basic norm of a
president. You should be asking him why is he on the phone with a
foreign leader, trying to intimidate a foreign leader. You should be
looking at Trump.”
Hunter Biden told The New Yorker previously that he and his father had spoken “just once” about his work in Ukraine.
A source told Fox News the photo was taken in August 2014. Contemporaneous news reports indicated the vice president was in the Hamptons at the time.
Hunter Biden and Archer joined the Burisma Holdings board in April 2014.
Earlier
this month, Trump suggested that despite his claims, Joe Biden
seemingly discussed Ukraine matters with his son. The White House has
sought to point to possible corruption by the Bidens, amid the House
Democrats' formal impeachment inquiry against the president.
Devon Archer, far left, with former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, far right, in 2014.
“And now, he made a lie when he said he never spoke to his son,” Trump said. “Of course you spoke to your son!”
Biden has acknowledged on camera that
in spring 2016, when he was vice president, he successfully
pressured Ukraine to fire top prosecutor Viktor Shokin. At the time,
Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings — where Hunter had a lucrative role on the board despite limited relevant expertise.
The vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion in critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.
"Well, son of a b---h, he got fired," Biden joked at a panel two years after leaving office.
Shokin himself had already been widely accused of corruption.
Critics alleged Hunter Biden might have been selling access to his father, who had pushed Ukraine to increase its natural gas production.
"Impossible
to justify $50k/month for Hunter Biden serving on a Ukrainian energy
board w zero expertise unless he promised to sell access," political
scientist Ian Bremmer tweeted.
Trump
attorney Rudy Giuliani, on Sunday, suggested Shokin was the target of
an international smear campaign to discredit his work.
In a combative interview on ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday,
Giuliani presented what he said was an affidavit signed by Shokin that
confirmed Hunter Biden was being investigated when Shokin was fired.
"I
have an affidavit here that's been online for six months that nobody
bothered to read from the gentleman who was fired, Viktor Shokin, the
so-called corrupt prosecutor," Giuliani said. "The Biden people say that
he wasn't investigating Hunter Biden at the time. He says under oath
that he was." The Shokin affidavit purportedly said the U.S.
had pressured him into resigning because he was unwilling to drop the
case.
Later,
Giuliani added: "I have another affidavit, this time from another
Ukrainian prosecutor who says that the day after Biden strong-armed the
president to remove Shokin, they show up in the prosecutor’s office --
lawyers for Hunter Biden show up in the prosecutor’s office and they
give an apology for dissemination of false information."
After
anchor George Stephanopoulos expressed skepticism, Giuliani fired
back: "How about if I -- how about if I tell you over the next week four
more of these will come out from four other prosecutors? ... No, no,
no, George, they won’t be [investigated], because they’ve been online
for six months, and the Washington press will not accept the fact that
Joe Biden might have done something like this."
Speaking separately to Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," Giuliani brought up the affidavits and called the situation Clintonesque.
“The
pattern is a pattern of pay for play. It includes something very
similar to what happened to the Clinton Foundation," Giuliani said,
"which goes to the very core of, what did Obama know and when did he
know it?"
Giuliani referred to a December 2015 New York Times article
about Hunter Biden, Burisma and a Ukrainian oligarch, and how the
younger Biden's involvement with the Ukrainian company could undermine
then-Vice President Biden's anti-corruption message.
"The question
is," Giuliani asked, "when Biden and Obama saw that article, about how
the son was pulling down money from the most crooked oligarch in Russia,
did Obama call Biden in and say, 'Joe, how could you be doing this?'" “Tucker Carlson Tonight” producer Alex Pfeiffer contributed to this report.
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