Rep. Ted Lieu (D., Calif.) said Wednesday there was "no evidence of corruption" in Hunter Biden receiving $50,000 per month to sit on the board of a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president.
"The underlying problem here was of course Hunter Biden receiving $50,000 a month from a Ukrainian energy company," Hill.TV host Saagar Enjeti said to Lieu. "Do you think that that is evidence of corrupt behavior?"
"No," Lieu said. "People sit on boards and they get monetary payments. What the evidence actually shows is that Ukrainians looked into this, terminated the investigation, and found nothing there. So this is just made up, which also is very troubling, because you have the American president essentially asking the Ukrainians to manufacture dirt on a political opponent because there really was no evidence of corruption."
President Donald Trump asked Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 phone call to look into the Bidens and the firing of a prosecutor investigating the company. A whistleblower complaint about the call led to charges from House Democrats that Trump abused his office by asking a foreign power to investigate a political opponent. They are now leading an impeachment inquiry over Trump's call, which the president maintains was "perfect."
Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma in 2014, more than two years before his father left office. Trump charged that Joe Biden influenced the removal of Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokin for looking into Burisma, but Bloomberg News reported his investigation into Burisma had already been dormant for a year when he was dismissed in 2016.
Joe Biden boasted about his role in helping force Shokin's removal, touting it as a victory against corruption.
Lieu sits on the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees, and as a frequent guest on cable news programs, he is one of the most visible and vocal critics of Trump on Capitol Hill. He has called for an impeachment vote by the end of the year.