Breaking: Impeachment witness says he tried to warn about Ukraine influence — with Biden
Ed MorrisseyPosted at 8:41 am on October 18, 2019
Impeachment, as it turns out, cuts any number of ways. In their attempt to prove that Donald Trump tried to strongarm Ukraine into digging up dirt on Joe Biden, House Democrats dug some up on their own. The Washington Post reports that a career State Department officer tried to warn officials in the Obama administration about the conflict of interest that Hunter Biden’s work created in Ukraine and with efforts to target corruption. When those warnings reached the Vice President’s office in early 2015, Biden’s team shut them down:
A career State Department official overseeing Ukraine policy told congressional investigators this week that he had raised concerns in early 2015 about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company but was turned away by a Biden staffer, according to three people familiar with the testimony.
George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, testified Tuesday that he worried that Hunter Biden’s position at the firm Burisma Holdings would complicate efforts by U.S. diplomats to convey to Ukrainian officials the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality rules surrounding the deposition.
Kent said he had concerns that Ukrainian officials would view Hunter Biden as a conduit for currying influence with his father, said the people. But when Kent raised the issue with Biden’s office, he was told the then-vice president didn’t have the “bandwidth†to deal with the issue involving his son as his other son, Beau, was battling cancer, said the people familiar with his testimony.
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https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/10/18/breaking-impeachment-witness-says-tried-warn-ukraine-influence-biden/
