Trump calls on China to investigate Bidens

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump doubled down on Ukraine and publicly urged China to investigate political rival Joe Biden on Thursday amid an impeachment inquiry into allegations the president tried to coerce a foreign government to interfere with the upcoming election.

“What happened in China is about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” Trump told reporters outside the White House as the president prepared to leave for events in Florida.

Trump has offered nothing to substantiate charges of corruption he has leveled at Biden, which the candidate and Democrats have termed a “smear campaign” to deflect allegations of wrongdoing that have engulfed the White House.

Trump’s latest request of a foreign government, China, to get involved in the election was appalling to Democratic lawmakers investigating the president.

“This is an obvious abuse of power and yet another attempt by Donald Trump to undermine our elections,” said Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev. “Our democracy is under attack by the president.”

Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, also have tried to raise suspicions about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China, leaning heavily on the writings of conservative author Peter Schweizer.

On Monday, Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the allegation that Chinese government business gave Biden’s son $1.5 billion “totally groundless.”

Ongoing abuse

The Biden campaign immediately fired back. The former vice president said in a Nevada speech on Wednesday that “the defining characteristic of Donald Trump’s presidency is the ongoing abuse of power.”

Trump’s new allegations of corruption in dealings with China were dismissed by Kate Bedingfield with the Biden campaign.

“Donald Trump is flailing and melting down on national television, desperately clutching for conspiracy theories that have been debunked and dismissed by independent, credible news organizations,” Bedingfield said.

Trump’s comments came as a former U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker, a diplomat at the center of the controversy met privately on Capitol Hill with lawmakers and staff from three committees about allegations that Trump abused his position for political gain.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., launched an impeachment inquiry last week after a whistleblower filed a complaint that the president tried to coerce the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden and son, Hunter, while the Trump administration withheld nearly $400 million in military aid that had been approved by Congress.

Trump continued his attacks on the whistleblower Thursday by calling the complaint, found credible and urgent by an inspector general, a piece of “total fiction.”

Requests to investigate

The president’s continued verbal attacks come as House Democrats prepare a subpoena for White House documents related to Trump’s request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens while the U.S. withheld the military aid.

That request by Trump for “a favor” was part of a telephone transcript between the leaders that the White House released under pressure. The president asked Zelenskiy to investigate Biden as money aid was withheld.

Those disclosures prompted Pelosi to launch the impeachment inquiry, and chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees issued subpoenas for documents and testimony to corroborate the claims and investigate allegations of wrongdoing.

The committees subpoenaed testimony and documents from Giuliani, and documents from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who admitted this week that he was on the telephone call with Trump and Zelenskiy.

The White House has directed staffers not to testify, and Pompeo said he did not want State Department career employees bullied by the Democrats on the panels.

Pompeo tried to block the testimony of Volker, who volunteered to testify before the committees behind closed doors.

Volker resigned from the State Department on Friday.

Hunter Biden’s job

Volker served as special envoy to Ukraine at the time Giuliani was trying to meet with members of the Zelenskiy government. Volker is a former CIA analyst and former executive director of the McCain Institute until joining the State Department in 2017.

He is one of several people expected to testify before the committees in the coming weeks.

As the House impeachment inquiry intensifies, Trump has upped the ante on his attacks on Biden and his son, without offering documents or evidence to substantiate the claims.

Hunter Biden served on the governing board of a Ukrainian energy company when his father served as vice president.

Trump leveled other accusations that Hunter Biden flew on Air Force Two with his father to China to seek funding for a private equity fund. Despite the appearance, there has been no evidence of wrongdoing to substantiate the president’s claim of corruption.

The president told reporters Thursday that after Hunter Biden left the Navy, “all of a sudden he’s getting billions of dollars. You know what they call that? They call that a payoff.”

Speaking to reporters in Arizona, Vice President Mike Pence echoed Trump’s call for an investigation of the Bidens.

“The American people have a right to know if the vice president of the United States or his family profited from his position as vice president during the last administration,” he said.

Conspiracy theories

The Biden campaign called the president’s accusations “conspiracy theories” and likened it to his campaign attack on Hillary Clinton in 2016 when he encouraged foreign interference with his “Russia, if you’re listening…” cyber request.

In Reno on Wednesday, Biden responded to the president’s claims.

“Let me make something clear to Mr. Trump and his hatchet men, and the special interests funding attacks against me — I’m not going anywhere,” Biden said.

“You are not going to destroy me, you’re not going to destroy my family,” he said.

Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub responded to Trump’s remarks, tweeting a reminder that it is a violation of campaign finance law for anyone to “solicit accept or receive” anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election. The agency polices campaign finance laws. But after a recent resignation, its board does not have enough commissioners to legally meet and take enforcement action.

Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter. The Associated Press contributed to this story.