Joe Biden's son Hunter 'did not violate anything', says former Ukraine prosecutor at heart of Trump scandal

(AP)

A top former Ukrainian prosecutor says Hunter Biden, son of Democratic 2020 frontrunner Joe Biden, broke no Ukrainian laws in his business dealings in the former Soviet country.

Yuri Lutsenko's claim comes after Donald Trump has pushed the narrative that the former vice president abused his position in the Obama administration to help his son, and as the president himself has been accused of abusing his position by trying to get the president of Ukraine to dig up dirt on the Bidens.

Mr Lutsenko told the Washington Post: "From the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, he did not violate anything."

The report from the Washington Post marks the first interview Mr Lutsenko has given since it was revealed that an intelligence official had filed a whistleblower complaint stating that Mr Trump had sought to pressure Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to re-open an investigation into Hunter Biden.

A redacted version of that whistleblower complaint was released Thursday. That document indicated that over half a dozen officials had come forward with concerns that Mr Trump had abused his office for personal gain during the 25 July phone call with Mr Zelensky, in which he suggested that the Ukrainian president work with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and US attorney general William Barr to investigate Mr Biden.

A detailed readout of that call provided by the White House indicated that Mr Trump had promised to help Ukraine with its security, before asking him for the political favour. The president had decided to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine just days earlier.

Mr Giuliani has claimed that Hunter Biden was involved in corruption while serving on the board of Ukraine's largest private gas company, Burisma. He has not provided evidence of that wrongdoing.

The senior Biden, for his part, had pressured Ukraine to fire Mr Lutsenko's predecessor, Viktor Shokine, who had been accused by western forces of not pursuing anti-corruption charges aggressively enough.