White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the administration is “incredibly transparent” with ethics following Hunter Biden’s attendance at a White House State dinner despite his guilty plea.
Hunter pleaded guilty on June 20 to illegally purchasing a gun while using drugs and failing to pay taxes in 2017 and 2018 in exchange for not serving jail time. He attended the State dinner Thursday night with President Joe Biden and other members of his family, raising ethics concerns among a handful of conservatives and members of the media.
“It’s normal for presidents to invite member of their family to official White House functions, like the State dinner last week,” RealClear Politics White House correspondent Philip Wegmann began. “I’m curious, though, in light of some of the recent legal controversy, if the president communicated to members of his family not to conduct business on White House grounds. Can you tell us about any kinds of guardrails that are up?”
“Look, I’m gonna be, again, very mindful because this is all connected to a case that the DOJ is currently overseeing so I am not going to comment on that specifically,” the press secretary said. “As you know, and we have laid out very early on in this administration, when it comes to ethics, when it comes to how we all kind of move about and how we respect clearly the government ethics here. This is an administration that has been incredibly transparent on that and has put some very strict rules.”
“So I can speak to that. I can speak to how the president has moved forward in making sure that the people who work for him and himself are held to kind of a strict course of action. But I’m not going to speak to anything that’s related to the case,” she said. (RELATED: ‘He’s An Addict’: ‘The View’ Co-Hosts Attempt To Defend Hunter Biden Attending State Dinner After Guilty Plea)
As she attempted to leave the briefing room, Wegmann pressed her about the family’s “guardrails,” about which the press secretary refused to speak.
Biden allegedly had knowledge and direct involvement in Hunter’s overseas business dealings in Ukraine and China, despite him claiming during his 2020 presidential run that he had never discussed his son’s business dealings. A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) file allegedly revealed Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of oil company Burisma, discussed $5 million bribes to Biden and his son, Hunter, The Washington Examiner reported.