Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden finally responded – well, kind of – to a New York Post bombshell that raises questions about Biden’s potential abuse of power in using his influence as former vice president to further his son’s lucrative business dealings with foreign companies.
Responding to a reporter’s question Sunday asking for his reaction to the story – a question not many reporters have bothered to ask thus far – Biden dodged addressing the actual allegations in the story, instead calling it a “smear campaign.”
“I know you’d ask it. I have no response, it’s another smear campaign, right up your alley, those are the questions you always ask,” Biden answered.
I asked Joe Biden: What is your response to the NYPost story about your son, sir?
— Bo Erickson CBS (@BoKnowsNews) October 17, 2020
He called it a “smear campaign” and then went after me. “I know you’d ask it. I have no response, it’s another smear campaign, right up your alley, those are the questions you always ask.” pic.twitter.com/Eo6VD4TqxD
The New York Post story included purported emails, taken from a laptop that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden, that revealed Hunter had introduced his father to an advisor to the Board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that a company that paid Hunter $50,000 a month, and which then-Vice president Biden may have helped protect from investigation by getting a top Ukrainian prosecutor fired. Biden has previously claimed that he “never even talked” with Hunter about his dealings with Burisma or any other overseas business.
Another NY Post story included other emails that, if true, show Hunter Biden negotiating an equity stake in a Chinese holding company for which he was paid $10,000 to provide “introductions,” an arrangement Hunter described in the alleged email as “interesting to me and my family.”
Neither Hunter nor the Biden family have denied that the emails are real and accurate. Both Facebook and Twitter have worked to actively censor the story, with Twitter even suspending the accounts of users who shared the link on their own newsfeeds before reversing their "rules" under threat of legal action from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.