Ukraine call spurs impeachment talk, but raises questions for Biden

WASHINGTON — Even as former Vice President Joe Biden enjoys a lead in most Democratic primary polls, his status as the most likely candidate to win his party’s nomination could be collateral damage in the Democrats’ push to impeach President Donald Trump.

The release of a transcript of a July 25 phone conversation demanded by Democrats revealed that Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to look into “talk” that the former vice president tried to block a probe that could hurt his son Hunter.

Stumping in Las Vegas Friday, Biden assured supporters, “We’ll overcome this.” Then he cited the multiple head-to-head polls that showed him beating Trump in the general election.

Politifact rated “false” Trump’s suggestion that Biden pushed for Kyiv to fire a “very good” prosecutor because he was investigating Ukraine natural gas company Burisma Holdings while Hunter Biden served on the board.

The fact-finding group acknowledged that Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees if Kyiv didn’t fire general prosecutor Viktor Shokin — indeed, Biden bragged about his pressure play during a 2018 speech — and that Hunter Biden was on Burisma’s board at the time, but concluded strong Western opposition cost the prosecutor his job.

In addition, a former top Ukrainian prosecutor general, Yuri Lutsenko, told Bloomberg and the Washington Post that Hunter Biden broke no laws.

Still, the plugged-in Burisma paid Hunter Biden some $50,000 per month as his father was urging Ukraine leaders to fight rampant corruption in the Eastern European nation.

Selling influence?

“Biden does have a problem here,” Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer said on CNN Tuesday. “I mean, I have to say, $50,000 a month for Hunter Biden, clearly to be selling influence, because otherwise no one would ever pay him that kind of money for a company that was frankly pretty corrupt.”

Bremmer added, “Maybe Biden wasn’t aware, but Biden should have been aware that that would cause an issue for him.”

Republican operatives promptly broadcast Bremmer’s remarks.

GOP campaign veteran Matt Mackowiak believes that Hunter Biden’s compensation — in a country where he has no roots — is the big issue.

“Of course people on the right are going to push that narrative, because it’s the only thing they have,” countered Democratic strategist Maria Cardona. Cardona does not believe the story will hurt Biden in the primary.

Cardona also told the Review-Journal she welcomes a family comparison. “I don’t think there’s going to be any credible accusation against Biden having to do with sons or daughters making money off their dad when he’s running against Donald Trump.”

Democratic strategist Darry Sragow sees “two schools of thought — one that he’s somehow been sullied and the other is that he has more appeal for Democratic voters because Trump’s going after him.”

But Mackowiak sees a “weak front-runner” — with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the most likely Democratic rival to benefit if Biden falls behind.

Foreign travel

In December 2013, Hunter Biden accompanied his father on a trip to Beijing where the vice president met with President Xi Jinping. Hunter arranged for a Beijing business associate to meet and shake hands with his father. A former Obama White House official told the New Yorker the episode had invited questions as to whether the son “was leveraging access for his benefit.”

Trump made clear that he is aware of the incident as he mentioned Ukraine and China, when he told reporters “to insist on transparency” at a news conference at the end of the United Nations General Assembly.

In May, the New York Times reported on Hunter Biden’s well-compensated work for Burisma, even though the Yale-educated son “lacked any experience in Ukraine and just months earlier had been discharged from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine.”

In July, the New Yorker ran a story that asked, “Will Hunter Biden Jeopardize His Father’s Campaign?”

On Sept. 21, when a Fox News reporter asked Biden how many times he talked to his son about his overseas business dealings, Biden replied, “I have never spoke to my son about his overseas business dealings.” With his finger in the reporter’s face, Biden also said, “Ask the right questions!”

But Hunter Biden had told the New Yorker he discussed Burisma with his father once, when his father said, “‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’”

Family heartbreak

“We’re about to get a full airing of all the Biden family’s dirty laundry,” noted GOP consultant Alex Conant. “Dozens of investigative reporters have been assigned to do stories on the Biden family business.”

The vice president is no stranger to heartbreak as he has survived the loss of a wife, daughter and son.

Son Beau Biden, then attorney general of Delaware, died of brain cancer in 2015.

In 1972, shortly after Joe Biden won a race for U.S. Senate, his wife, Neilia, and daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car crash. Beau, 4, and Hunter, 2, were critically injured.

If Trump insists on pushing Hunter Biden as an issue, Sragow suggested, Biden should say, “Let’s make a deal. Let’s keep the families out of this.”

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.