Kent...

A career State Department official told congressional investigators this week that he raised concerns in 2015 with a senior official at the White House about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son being on the board of a Ukrainian natural-gas company because of concerns about the potential optics of a conflict of interest, a person familiar with the matter said.

The State Department official, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, told lawmakers behind closed doors that he raised the issue in January 2015 and expressed reservations about Hunter Biden’s position at Burisma Holdings because it could add to the challenges to convey to Ukraine the importance of cleaning up corruption and avoiding even potential conflicts of interest, this person said.

“Regardless of whether anything is wrong, it looks terrible,” Mr. Kent told lawmakers that he told the official who worked in Mr. Biden’s office at the time,