WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, ensnared in an impeachment inquiry over his request that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, on Thursday called on China to do the same.
“China
should start an investigation into the Bidens,” Trump said in remarks to
reporters outside the White House. Trump said he hadn’t directly asked Chinese
President Xi Jinping to investigate Biden and his son Hunter but said it’s
“certainly something we could start thinking about.”
By
publicly egging China on to investigate a Democratic political rival, Trump
affirmed the approach he made in private to Ukraine’s president that has led to
the impeachment investigation by the House. Trump has defended his contact with
Ukraine as “perfect” and now is giving broad airing to a similar appeal to
China, a nation that has much at stake in its relationship with the United
States in an ongoing trade war.
Trump’s
comments evoked his public call in 2016 for Russia to release Hillary Clinton’s
emails if they had obtained them by hacking _ which U.S. intelligence agencies
later determined to be the case.
“Russia,
if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are
missing,” Trump said during a July 2016 press conference. He later claimed in
written answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller that he made
the appeal to Russia “in jest and sarcastically, as was apparent to any
objective observer.”
The
boldness of his call on Thursday suggests the president is shelving that idea
of humor and that he will continue to try to make the case that requests that
another country investigate a potential opponent in the 2020 election are
normal, even in the face of broad condemnation from Democrats and even some
Republicans. In the case of both Ukraine and China, Trump has made his
allegations against Biden without evidence of wrongdoing.
The
president 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.”
Trump’s
requests for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens,
as well as Giuliani’s conduct, are at the center of an intelligence community
whistleblower’s complaint that sparked the House Democratic impeachment inquiry
last week.
The
president’s reference to China came unprompted when he answered a question
about the July 25 Ukraine call and moments after he was asked about trade
negotiations with China.
“I have
a lot of options on China, but if they don’t do what we want, we have
tremendous, tremendous power,” Trump said.
He later
alleged without evidence that China had a “sweetheart deal” on trade with the
U.S. because of the Bidens.
“You
know what they call that,” Trump said. “They call that a payoff.”
Biden
campaign Chairman Cedric Richmond dismissed Trump’s assertions as a reflection
of the president’s concerns about facing Biden in his re-election campaign.
“This president is scared, and he’s acting out,” the Louisiana congressman
said.
House
intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff, who is taking a leading role in
the impeachment inquiry, said Trump’s comments show “he feels he can do
anything with impunity.”
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.
Trump’s
comments came as he publicly acknowledged that his message to Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other officials was to investigate Biden, a
leading 2020 Democratic presidential contender. He had ducked the question at a
news conference on Wednesday.
“It’s a
very simple answer,” Trump said of his call with Zelenskiy. “They should
investigate the Bidens.”
Trump
has sought to implicate Biden and his son in the kind of corruption that has
long plagued Ukraine. Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gas
company, Burisma, at the same time his father was leading the Obama
administration’s diplomatic dealings with Kyiv.j
**AP
writers Brian Slodysko, Alan Fram and Bill Barrow contributed.