Democrats and the media thought they had a new scandal to hang on President Donald Trump when it was leaked that a so-called “whistleblower” complained about the content of a phone call the president had with the president of Ukraine. But as more information emerged, the spotlight shifted from Trump to former Vice President Joe Biden — in particular, his son Hunter’s allegedly corrupt business dealings in Ukraine.
For his part, the 2020 frontrunner was asked about the Ukraine story while on the campaign trail in Iowa on Saturday — and, according to The Daily Wire, he responded with anger that was directed at both President Trump and the reporter, who was simply doing his job.
Lies, lies, lies
“Mr. Vice President, how many times have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings?” asked Fox News reporter Peter Doocy.
“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden replied immediately. But that wasn’t quite the truth.
According to the Daily Wire, the New Yorker reported that Biden admitted to speaking to his son about his business dealings on at least one occasion.
Biden blows up
That dishonesty wasn’t the biggest takeaway from Biden’s response to Doocy, however. The former vice president exploded with rage at reports that Trump had asked Ukraine to reopen an investigation into Hunter Biden’s former employer, a corrupt energy firm known as Burisma.
“Here’s what I know: I know Trump deserves to be investigated,” Biden said, pointing an angry finger in Doocy’s face. “He is violating every basic norm of a president.”
Biden went on: “You should be asking [Trump] the question, why is he on the phone with a foreign leader trying to intimidate a foreign leader, if that’s what happened, that appears [to be] what happened. You should be looking at Trump.”
Joe Biden on his Ukraine scandal: “Why’s [Trump] on the phone with a foreign leader trying to intimidate [them]?”
Biden in 2016 on what he told Ukraine: “I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money’” pic.twitter.com/IjNgweVH67
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) September 21, 2019
Later, Biden commented on the allegations against his son directly. “Everybody’s looked at this and everybody who has looked at it said there’s nothing there,” Biden said before turning to Doocy: “Ask the right questions.”
Looking ahead
But if anyone deserves to be investigated for attempting to intimidate foreign leaders, it’s Biden himself. The former VP openly bragged at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting in 2018 about threatening to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine unless the country’s government fired a senior prosecutor that was investigating the company that employed Hunter Biden — which they did.
It remains to be seen what, if anything, will come of this latest dust-up over Ukraine. Still, the longer national attention stays focused on Ukraine, the more danger Biden faces of his potentially scandalous family business dealings being exposed.