US President Donald Trump called for an investigation into Democratic 2020 hopeful Joe Biden over alleged corrupt conduct during his time as VP, arguing a Republican in the same position would “get the electric chair.”
Speaking to reporters on Monday after a meeting with Polish President Andzej Duda, Trump lashed out at what he said was politically slanted news coverage that ignores scandals in the Democratic Party.
“They probably know that Joe Biden and his son are corrupt,” the president said. “But the fake news doesn’t want to report it, because they’re Democrats.”
If a Republican ever did what Joe Biden did, if a Republican ever said what Joe Biden said, they’d be getting the electric chair right now.
- "I didn't put any pressure on them"
- "Joe Biden and his son are corrupt"
- "If a Republican ever said what Joe Biden said, they'd be getting the electric chair"
- "You got a lot of crooked journalists, you're crooked as hell"
Trump has accused the former VP of abusing his power in Ukraine during his time in the Barack Obama administration, allegedly threatening to withhold over $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Kiev unless the government fired a prosecutor then investigating Burisma Holdings, an energy company Biden’s son worked for at the time.
“I think it was $1.2 billion he wasn’t going to give unless they get rid of a prosecutor who is investigating his son and the company that his son works for,” Trump said, describing the allegation.
While Biden maintains his innocence and insists that he never spoke to his son about his business dealings abroad, the former VP was caught on tape boasting about pressuring the Ukrainian government to terminate the prosecutor in question. By that time, the investigation into Burisma Holdings was reportedly shelved, though it is unclear whether there were plans to re-open it.
Despite the video evidence confirming that Biden did, in fact strong-arm the Ukrainian government, mainstream media outlets such as CNN quickly dismissed the story outright as a “conspiracy theory.”
The Ukraine allegation found its way back into the headlines after reports last week that President Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky during a phone call to open a new corruption probe into Biden and his son. Trump has defended the call, arguing that he did not put undue pressure on Zelensky, and said he was considering releasing a transcript of the interaction.
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