President Trump accused former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter of being “stone cold crooked,” during a Wednesday afternoon press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö.
Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens in July regarding Hunter Biden’s work on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company which had previously faced allegations of corruption. The phone call became national news after a CIA officer filed a whistleblower complaint alleging wrongdoing by the president.
“Look, Biden and his son are stone cold crooked and you know it,” Trump said to Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason in response to his question. “His son walks out with millions of dollars. The kid knows nothing. You know it and so do we.” He went on to attack Mason, demanding that he ask the Finnish president a question.
While vice president, Biden threatened to withhold U.S. aid to Ukraine if that country did not fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.
Biden has backed the House’s impeachment inquiry launched in response to this conversation.
“Using its full constitutional authority, Congress, in my view, should demand the information it has a legal right to receive. If a president does not comply with such a request to Congress, if he continues to obstruct Congress and flout the law, Donald Trump will leave the Congress with no choice but to initiate impeachment. That would be a tragedy, but a tragedy of his own making,” Biden told reporters last month.
