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Karine Jean-Pierre Gets Awfully Testy When Asked About Biden Family Dealings

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  July 24, 2023 6:45 PM

Monday looks to have been a bad day for the Biden administration, especially as it applies to whatever involvement Joe Biden had with the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden. It was pretty much a given that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was going to be asked about the damning details provided by Devon Archer, the former best friend of Hunter Biden. As revealed in an op-ed from Miranda Devine with The New York Post, then Vice President Biden was in contact with Hunter's business partners and associates "as many as two dozen times."

Fox News' Gillian Turner pointed out that "Chairman James Comer today says that the Oversight Committee has evidence that the president, in the past, communicated directly with foreign business associates of his son Hunter Biden many times," adding she was "curious if the White House, and the president, still stand behind his comment that he's never been involved in and never even spoken to his son about his business dealings."

Before Turner could fully even finish asking her question, Jean-Pierre reminded that she's "been asked this question a million times," with quite the attitude, as if it were not a supremely important question, or this administration could fully be trusted.

Jean-Pierre claimed "the answer is not going to change, the answer remains the same," also responding that "the president was never in business with his son, I just don't have anything else to add."

For all of the claims and emphasis on Jean-Pierre's part, though, that's not quite the whole story. The previous narrative was that Biden never spoke with his son about his overseas business dealings. It doesn't look like the White House can accurately say that anymore, so the narrative now has to be he wasn't in business with Hunter.

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Regardless of the narrative that Jean-Pierre has spoken to about, she and her predecessor have not exactly done the most fitting job in sticking to a straight, accurate answer on the matter, or even answering to it at all, really.

While Jean-Pierre has had a habit of not being able to provide answers, perhaps one of the worst examples came late last November, when asked "can you address whether the president was involved in any of his son Hunter or his brother's foreign business dealings?"

The press secretary sputtered in spectacular fashion, "so look, I, you know, um, there's some, a little bit of, uh, interesting, uh, you know, kind of, on brand, uh, thinking here," as she went on to discus the midterm election priorities. 

When she did finally speak to the question at hand, it wasn't exactly to answer the question. "Look, my colleagues in the White House Counsel’s Office are handling these threats of investigation by the House Republicans.  So, when it comes to specific allegations, I would refer you to--to them.  I’m not going to get into specifics of what that might look like or anything else that’s related to this," she offered.

Not only did Jean-Pierre get testy with her response, but so has Biden before, including while running for president. Even the claim that Biden has not spoken to his son about his business dealings would be incorrect though. 

Archer, who was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee last month, is expected to testify before the Committee "soon," according to Comer.