Hunter Biden defends taking position on Burisma board

Hunter Biden on Monday defended his decision to serve on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, but acknowledged he would not do it again after the position became a point of attack for the Trump campaign during the 2020 election.

The president’s son, in a pair of CBS interviews to promote his new memoir, was adamant that he did nothing wrong and that he was qualified to serve on the board of Burisma, contrary to claims from former President Trump and his allies.

“The question of whether I would do it again, though, is no,” Hunter Biden said on “CBS This Morning.”

“I didn’t fully comprehend the level to which this former administration and the people around it would go,” he added when asked whether he felt the role would make him a political target. “The difference between the politics that you’re talking about in terms of the last, you know, four years is a very different game. And I don’t … ever want to again to hand a weapon to people that would use it in a illegitimate way that they used the weapon of me against my dad.”

WATCH: @AnthonyMasonCBS spoke with Hunter Biden about whether his business dealings ever crossed a line — including work for a Ukrainian company that became a big issue in President Trump’s first impeachment — and whether he regrets putting his father’s political future at risk. pic.twitter.com/ImbuBil1sw

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) April 5, 2021

In a separate interview with “CBS Sunday Morning,” Hunter Biden said he does not believe he made a mistake taking a spot on the Burisma board, and he insisted he did not foresee the optics it would create given his father, then-Vice President Biden, was overseeing foreign policy in Ukraine.

“All I know, is that not one investigative body, not one serious journalist have ever accused — has ever come to the conclusion that I did anything wrong, or that my father did anything wrong,” Hunter Biden said.

The president’s son has been on a media blitz over the past few weeks to promote his new memoir, “Beautiful Things,” which details his struggles with substance abuse.

Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a natural gas giant in Ukraine, in 2014. The company’s founder was under investigation by then-prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, who the U.S., United Kingdom and other Western governments argued had failed to rein in corruption in the country.

The U.S. threatened to withhold roughly $1 billion in loan guarantees if Shokin was not replaced as prosecutor general, a message Joe Biden delivered to officials in Kyiv while serving as vice president and recounted during a 2018 Council on Foreign Relations conference.

While many of Trump’s allies and some former government officials have argued that there was a conflict of interest in the case, Biden has denied acting with his son’s business interests in mind. There is no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing by either of the Bidens and no evidence that Hunter Biden’s work influenced U.S. policy.

Trump’s call for Ukraine to investigate the Biden’s triggered his first impeachment in 2019.