CNN contributor on the Ukraine scandal: ‘Biden does have a problem here’

TIME editor at large and Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer appeared on CNN recently, where he shared some bad news for Joe Biden.

In a move that Bremmer regarded as more than a little suspicious, the former vice president’s son, Hunter Biden, joined the board of Ukraine’s largest (and arguably most corrupt) energy firm, Burisma, in 2014, the BBC reports. Now, the Bidens’ dealings with Ukraine have come under scrutiny — and according to Bremmer, that could spell trouble for the Democrats’ 2020 frontrunner.

Big problems for Biden

“[Joe] Biden does have a problem here,” Bremmer said on CNN on Tuesday. Alluding to reports that have alleged Hunter Biden was paid upwards of $50,000 per month for his work with Burisma, Bremmer noted that something just doesn’t add up.

“I have to say $50,000 a month for Hunter Biden — clearly to be selling influence because otherwise, no one would ever pay him that kind of money — for a company that, frankly, was pretty corrupt and has been before and has been since under investigation,” Bremmer lamented.

When pressed by another pundit questioning if Joe Biden is really to blame for his son’s business dealings, Bremmer said Biden — and the Barack Obama administration — should have known better.

“It’s hard to imagine Joe Biden wasn’t aware of it,” Bremmer said. “I expect that President Obama, if he had known about the reality of the situation, would’ve probably told Biden, ‘Get rid of this, we shouldn’t have your son working in this situation.’ That would have cost him something. And I fear even if maybe Biden wasn’t aware, but Biden should’ve been aware that that would cause an issue for him.”

Joe spills the beans

Indeed, the optics of the situation are even worse than Bremmer let on. According to the Wall Street Journal, while Burisma was under investigation by Ukraine’s then-prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, then-Vice President Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. to Ukraine unless Shokin was removed from his post.

And this isn’t just an allegation: Joe Biden admitted it himself at a January 2018 event for the Council on Foreign Relations.

“I had gotten a commitment from [Ukraine’s president] that they would take action against a state prosecutor, and they didn’t,” Joe Biden recalled at the time. “I said, ‘I’m telling you — you’re not getting a billion dollars.’ I said, ‘You’re not getting a billion and I’m going to be leaving here,’ and I think it was about six hours, and I looked and said, ‘I’m going to be leaving in about six hours. If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money.'”

The former VP described what happened next in his own words: “Well, son of a b***h, he got fired.”

Take a look at a clip of the exchange, courtesy of RT:

The full picture

During a tense exchange with Fox News reporter Peter Doocy on Saturday, Joe Biden denied ever talking with his son about his Ukraine dealings. But earlier this year, Hunter Biden said in an interview with the New Yorker that the two actually had discussed the matter.

Hunter Biden recalled in July: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’”