People who think Joe Biden is the most likely contender to win the Democrats' presidential nomination must believe that the mainstream media will remain silent about the way his son Hunter scored lucrative business deals with foreign governments after accompanying his dad on overseas missions during the latter's vice presidency.  (They also must believe that his stupid gaffes will somehow end, but that's a separate issue.)

But as I predicted more than a month ago, neither of these is going to happen.

ABC News is pressing the issue of Hunter Biden's remarkable luck with foreign governments.

Smell something bad?  (ABC News screen grab.)

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden declined to answer questions on the campaign trail this week about his son's overseas business dealings in countries where the then-vice president was conducting diplomatic work, an issue his political opponents have already begun to wield against him as he wades into the 2020 presidential campaign.

More than once, after his father engaged in diplomacy on behalf of the United States in foreign countries, Hunter Biden conducted business in the same country. At two separate campaign stops on Monday, Biden avoided questions about his son while his staff blocked reporters from approaching the candidate.

Biden's campaign did provide ABC News with a statement saying the former vice president has always adhered to "well-established executive branch ethics standards," adding that if Biden wins the White House he will issue an executive order to "address conflicts of interest of any kind."

"This process will be set out in detail in the executive order," the statement reads, "that President Biden would issue on his first day in office."

The ethics pledge follows renewed questions about a pair of overseas business opportunities involving Hunter Biden – one in Ukraine, another in China – that already have begun to generate political attacks from Joe Biden's conservative critics. Ethics experts interviewed by ABC News said these are legitimate questions about possible past and future conflicts of interest.

Imagine that: ABC is taking up issues that until now have been the exclusive province of "conservative critics"!  It must be sheer coincidence that this follows the broadcast of interviews of Trump done by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, having been granted an extraordinary amount of access to Trump.

You can watch the video segment ABC broadcast yesterday below:

Hat tip: Roger Luchs.