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COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy implied Saturday that American involvement in the war in Ukraine may be because of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
“The purpose of the U.S. military [is] to advance American interests, to protect the homeland. Not to aimlessly fight some random war that’s arguably a repayment for a private bribe that a family member of the United States received, $5 million from Burisma,” said Ramaswamy, speaking at a campaign event to a crowd of about 60 Iowans in Council Bluffs.
Ramaswamy, who’s crisscrossing Iowa in a bid to win the Republican nomination, has been highly critical of U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine while on the trail.
“Was the payment to Hunter Biden corrupt? Absolutely it was. Do I think that it has some relationship towards our posture toward Ukraine? I think it’s likely that it does,” Ramaswamy said.
Ramaswamy’s comments were an apparent reference to an alleged bribe involving both the president and his son. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has claimed he was told by a whistleblower — whose claims are uncorroborated — about a tip regarding a $5 million payment from a foreign national to Joe Biden, then vice president, and a family member “relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.”
Republicans later identified the other family member as Hunter Biden, who served at the time as an attorney and board member of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.
The White House has denied the president had any participation in his son’s business dealings.
Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, was questioned by the Republican-led House oversight committee on Monday. According to transcripts from the closed-door interview, Archer said the president’s son used the Biden “brand” to his advantage while working for Burisma.
He also testified that he had no knowledge of the president altering U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine to help his son.
Archer said Hunter Biden would put his father on speakerphone in front of business associates at dinners, but those conversations centered around small talk like the weather.
Russia invaded Ukraine in the winter of 2022, years after Biden left Burisma’s board. Since the invasion, the Biden administration and Congress have given billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine despite polls that show the American people are split on sending more funding.
