the obama ethics chief said hunter biden received up to 500k a painting for 'being the president's son and not an artist' and will 'tarnish his dad's reputation'

Former White House ethics chief Walter Shaub tore into Hunter Biden and his art deal which he said will 'tarnish' President Biden's legacy.

'I just think that's absolutely appalling,' Shaub said.  

The Obama-era ethics chief continued: 'If he were a patriot—if he cared about this country—he would not want to tarnish his father's reputation that way.'

'Now we can't fault him for not being a patriot. We can't fault him for not caring enough about his father's legacy to avoid this,' Shaub said on Law & Crime's 'Objections' podcast.

'Now we can't fault him for not being a patriot. We can't fault him for not caring enough about his father's legacy to avoid this,' he continued.

 'That's a personal failing and he doesn't technically owe us anything because he's a citizen and not a government official, but then the White House crossed the line and they got involved in this deal and the art seller was theoretically always planning to keep the names secret, but the White House intervened to ask him to keep the names secret.'

'I just think that's absolutely appalling,' Walter Shaub, Obama-era ethics chief said

The gallery's website praises Hunter's art as 'powerful and impactful'

Hunter's New York exhibition will be at the Georges Bergès Gallery in New York's trendy SoHo neighborhood

Hunter's works will reportedly be sold at prices ranging from $75,000 to $500,000 for larger pieces. 

Ethics concerns over whether prospective buyers would pay half a million just to gain access to the White House have plagued the 51-year-old recovering drug addict's artistic debut.

In response the White House has set guidelines that mandate Hunter and members of his father's administration will have no idea who is buying the works and for how much.

'There is simply no way an artist who has never even juried into a community center art fair is going to suddenly show up in New York selling art for half a million a pop,' Shaub said. 'Let's talk about the magnitude of this...That's $6.5 million going to the president's son for being the president's son, not for being an artist and I just think that's absolutely appalling.' 

Shaub said that Hunter Biden's 'career choices' have showed that he 'clearly endeavored to make money off his dad being a politician.'

In fact, the younger Biden's career choices were at the heart of President Trump's first impeachment, when Hunter sat on the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma, where he was paid $50,000 a month for his expertise, though he had no experience in energy. 

Shaub said the president's recovering drug addict son is a 'sympathetic character' who 'we can feel bad for on many levels' but 'some of his problems are of his own making, in that he has always built his career around being Joe Biden's son.'

George Bergès Gallery plans to exhibit Hunter Biden’s works in Los Angeles next month and New York City in October. 

Speaking to art podcast Nota Bene at the end of July, Hunter modestly said he would 'be amazed if my art had sold for $10.'

Bergès said Hunter's works have a 'profound energy' to justify the thousands of dollars he's looking to charge for them

Shaub is an avid critic of the Trump children, too, for exploiting their surname, calling their violations under Trump's presidency “far, far worse.' But he said the Biden family has done nothing to usher in an 'ethical Renaissance' in Washington. 

“When people think I’m blowing the Hunter Biden thing out of proportion, what they’re missing is that this is all part of a larger concern. And it isn’t really about Hunter Biden. It’s about the failure to understand that we need an ethical Renaissance in government, or we’re going to find ourselves in an even worse place than we did for the last four years,” he said.