Gregg Jarrett: Hunter Biden's role in Burisma warrants investigation
2020 hopeful Joe Biden calls the Senate committee authorizing subpoenas in the Hunter Biden probe nothing more than a 'diversion'; Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett reacts.
Joe Biden is trying to deflect legitimate questions surrounding his son Hunter's 2014 work in Ukraine on the board of natural gas company Burisma Holdings, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett accused Thursday.
In an interview on "Fox & Friends," Jarrett said the question about whether there was influence-peddling by Burisma, consulting company Blue Star Strategies, and Hunter Biden by leveraging the influence of his vice president father is admissible.
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"We have already heard him on videotape bragging about how he threatened to withhold a billion dollars of U.S. aid to Ukraine unless a particular Ukrainian prosecutor was fired who has signed an affidavit saying he was investigating Hunter Biden and Burisma," Jarrett stated. "So, it’s a classic case of suspected influence-peddling. It merits investigation."
Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden walks with his sons Beau (L) and Hunter (R) down Pennsylvania Avenue during the inaugural parade in Washington January 20, 2009. (REUTERS/Larry Downing)
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for an investigation into leaked recordings purportedly depicting Joe Biden telling Zelensky's predecessor Petro Poroshenko that his country would receive aid from the U.S. once top prosecutor Viktor Shokin was replaced.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee already has acknowledged such an arrangement publicly. However, the leaked audio revived criticism that Biden was engaged in a kind of quid-pro-quo.
The new audio indicates Poroshenko went along with Biden's plan but did not think Shokin was involved in wrongdoing.
Shokin purportedly has said under oath that he had launched a probe concerning Hunter Biden's role at Burisma Holdings when he was ousted. Meanwhile, Biden's defenders have argued his intervention had nothing to do with Burisma and was focused on corruption concerns.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted along party lines Wednesday to subpoena documents and depositions from Blue Star Strategies.
While Republicans have continuously pushed for a probe into the circumstances surrounding the Bidens' involvement in Ukraine, Democrats argue that a hearing now would be nothing more than smoke and mirrors -- trying to distract from President Trump's own problems.
The Biden campaign echoed those sentiments, blasting the subpoena as a political "smear" aimed at diverting attention away from the now over 93,000 COVID-19 deaths counted nationwide.
Campaign Spokesman Andrew Bates also called the leaked audio a "nothingburger" that was "heavily edited."
"And look, the question that the Homeland Security Committee will want to ask Blue Star Strategies is, ‘Did you guys, on behalf of Hunter Biden and Burisma, go to the U.S. government to try to influence it to shut down an investigation into Hunter Biden's company?’ Which was paying him millions of dollars in exchange for essentially nothing," Jarrett remarked.
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"No expertise in natural gas. No expertise in Ukraine. [And,] at the same time that Joe Biden was pressuring Ukraine to increase their natural gas production to the great benefit of Burisma and Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's own son," he added.
"So, these are legitimate questions. And, it sounds to me like Joe Biden is the one who is guilty of deflection and diversion."
Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to this report.
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