Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) plans to file legislation when Congress reconvenes to ban immediate family members of senior U.S. officials from profiting off Ukraine — a thinly veiled jab at Joe and Hunter Biden.
“Specifically, his bill will ban an immediate family member of a member of the Senate, the House, the president’s Cabinet, the vice president and/or the president from serving as a consultant, employee, independent contractor or board member for or owning 5 percent or more in any entity doing business in or with Ukraine,” Kennedy’s office said in a statement.
Hunter Biden sat on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian company, that had a history of sketchy business practices. Separately, then-Vice President Joe Biden, with many other western leaders, targeted a Ukrainian prosecutor tasked with rooting out statewide corruption for not actually doing his job.
Though investigations by the prosecutor into Burisma were shelved before Joe Biden started calling for the official’s ouster, and it is never clear that Hunter Biden was even a subject of the probe, President Donald Trump and co. have been bending over backwards to accuse Hunter Biden of impropriety and Joe Biden of trying to cover it up.
Kennedy’s bill seems to be a fairly heavy-handed swipe at Hunter Biden’s past role at Burisma.
As to the other part of the Ukrainian story, that a call memo revealed that Trump attempted to strong-arm Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into trumping up these bogus accusations against the Bidens, Kennedy is less disapproving.
During a widely shared interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, Kennedy dismissed questions of Trump’s wrongdoing, continuously directing the conversation back to unfounded accusations against Biden. Todd pointedly warned him to stop “gaslighting” the audience.
Read Kennedy’s full statement here:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) announced today that he will file legislation after recess to ban the immediate family members of senior U.S. political officials from profiting in Ukraine.
Specifically, his bill will ban an immediate family member of a member of the Senate, the House, the president’s cabinet, the vice president and/or the president from serving as a consultant, employee, independent contractor or board member for or owning 5% or more in any entity doing business in or with Ukraine. Immediate family members include parents, siblings and children.
“The Ukraine government is historically corrupt, which is one way Russia exerts influence there,” said Sen. Kennedy. “It is hard to know who to believe or trust, though I hope President Zelensky will chart a new, more ethical course. Senior members of our government should not be a part of, or seen to be a part of, this conduct. That hurts America, and it hurts the good people of Ukraine with whom the American people stand. My bill will remove any appearance of impropriety or potential conflict of interest for any immediate family member of a senior United States official. The best way to resist temptation is a proper upbringing, a strong set of values and tough laws.”
