During Tuesdays Democratic presidential primary debate , candidate Joe Biden was asked if it was a mistake for his son Hunter Biden to sit on the board of a Ukrainian gas company while Biden was the vice president and working on Ukrainian corruption issues. Biden dodged the question: He insisted he and his son did nothing wrong, that he was proud of his sons judgment, that people should really be focused on President Donald Trump s corruption, and something about George Washington.

Trumps request in a July 25 phone call that the president of Ukraine investigate the Bidens is what prompted Democrats to officially open an impeachment inquiry. As the debate moderator noted in his question, there is no evidence that the Bidens had a corrupt arrangement in Ukraine. But both Joe and Hunter Biden seem aware of the poor optics. The former vice president has said he would ban his family and anyone associated with him from being involved in any foreign operation whatsoever if he were elected president. And Hunter acknowledged Tuesday, hours before the debate, that he used poor judgment in taking the job.