A Senate Republican on the Judiciary Committee asked Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett a “hypothetical” involving “foreign corruption” committed by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden when he was vice president.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, didn’t mention Biden by name but was clearly referencing allegations that Biden, while vice president, acted in his official role in the Obama administration to push for the firing of a prosecutor in Ukraine who was targeting an oil company oligarch who employed Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
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“I think it’s only fair that I ask,” Hawley said to Barrett, “whether, hypothetically speaking, just hypothetically, if there were, let’s say, a vice president of the United States who hypothetically had an adult son, who might have a foreign oligarch, who then sold access to his father the vice president, and his father intervened in a case to make sure that oligarch wasn’t prosecuted, would that violate the foreign corruption the constitution is concerned about?”
Barrett told Hawley, “I can’t answer hypotheticals.”
[Read more: Senate committee that investigated Joe Biden’s Ukraine ties to look into fresh Hunter Biden allegations]
Hawley brought up the matter after Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, asked Barrett whether President Trump was in violation of the emoluments clause because of the hundreds of companies and foreign governments who have patronized Trump properties during his presidency.
Barrett told Leahy she could not answer the question because the matter is under litigation in a lower court.
Barrett disagreed with Leahy’s characterization that the emoluments clause was aimed at preventing corruption. She said it was “designed to prevent foreign countries from having influence.”
Hawley told Barrett he was glad she wouldn’t answer his question about the Bidens, “because who knows, that case may come before you.”
