Trump all but admits he tried to make quid pro quo with Ukraine over Biden’s son in brag to reporters
In a stunning show of arrogance, President Trump all but admitted to asking Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings while speaking to reporters at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this morning.
“We’re supporting a country. We want to make sure that country is honest…it’s very important to talk about corruption. if you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?” said Trump, seemingly referring to the $250 million in military aid that the Trump administration withheld and then released to Ukraine with an extra $140 million on top.
Trump again basically cops to asking Ukraine about Biden: "We're supporting a country. We want to make sure that country is honest…it's very important to talk about corruption. if you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?" pic.twitter.com/u2zlloPl1X
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 23, 2019
President Trump is accused of having asked Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelensky not once but eight times in one phone call about a Ukranian investigation into the Biden family, and that call is believed to be the subject of a whistleblower complaint that the Trump administration is desperately trying to bury.
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1176166809642459136?s=20
But of course, the only “corruption” that Trump was concerned about was the business dealings of the Biden family, whose son Hunter earned $50,000 for sitting on the board of a Ukranian natural gas company while his father touted natural gas as a “bridge fuel” and served as the Obama administration’s “point man” on US-Ukranian relations.
It is deeply cynical, wildly inappropriate and possibly illegal for the President to have abused our international relationships in order to drum up a scandal to hurt a potential election opponent and it is imperative that Democrats in Congress take swift and decisive action to punish him for his behavior — but we also need to ask ourselves why so many of our Democratic establishment politicians keep having to deal with these kinds of uncomfortable and ethically questionable incidents surrounding their families, private companies, and charitable foundations.
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