Fmr. US Ethics Chief Rips Hunter Biden’s ‘Grifty’ 6-Figure Art Sales: ‘He Can’t Possibly Think’ He’s Getting Paid for the ‘Quality of the Art’

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Former White House ethics chief Walter Shaub said Monday he believed Hunter Biden’s art sales had a “shameful and grifty feeling.”

“Just as hotel charges and real estate purchases created a risk of unknown parties funneling money to the Trump family for potentially unsavory purposes, Hunter Biden’s grotesquely inflated art prices create a similar risk of influence-seekers funneling money to the Biden family,” Shaub said in an interview with Fox News.

Biden, 51, is selling his paintings to anonymous private buyers at prices ranging from $75,000 to half a million. Art dealer Alex Acevedo advised in an interview with The New York Post that they would be worth $25,000 to $100,000 if they were not being sold by the president’s son.

“The notion of a president’s son capitalizing on that relationship by selling art at obviously inflated prices and keeping the public in the dark about who’s funneling money to him has a shameful and grifty feel to it,” said Shaub — who served as director of the Office of Government Ethics under President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump. “I also think it’s ridiculous that Hunter Biden is even going forward with this sale as a first-time artist. He can’t possibly think anyone is paying him based on the quality of the art. This smells like an attempt to cash in on a family connection to the White House.”

“Pricing fine art in his experiences as a Gallerist is based on the demand of the work as well and the intrinsic value of it,” The Townsend Group said. “His feeling is that within each piece – as with every artist, sales are always confidential to protect the privacy of the collector, this is standard practice for transactions in galleries as well as auction houses.”

The Townsend Group, which is representing Biden’s art dealer, defended Biden’s work, saying in a statement, “Pricing fine art in his experiences as a Gallerist is based on the demand of the work as well and the intrinsic value of it. … As with every artist, sales are always confidential to protect the privacy of the collector. This is standard practice for transactions in galleries as well as auction houses.”