President Donald Trump said Thursday that China should also investigate Hunter Biden and his father, former Vice President Joe Biden for corruption.
“Likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as Ukraine,” Trump said.
The president spoke to reporters outside the White House as he traveled to Florida for an event defending Medicare.
Trump said he had not brought up the idea of investigating the Bidens with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but liked the idea.
“I haven’t, but clearly it’s something we should start thinking about,” he said.
Trump estimated that President Xi would not appreciate an investigation of Hunter Biden’s dealings with China.
“I’m sure that President Xi doesn’t like that kind of scrutiny, where billions of dollars is taken out of his country by a guy that got kicked out of the Navy,” Trump said. “You know what they call that? They call it a payoff.”
Hunter Biden’s financial firm scored a $1.5 billion investment deal with the Bank of China just days after he traveled with his father for a visit to the country in 2013.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden confirmed in June to ABC News that Biden remains in his position despite questions about his role at a Chinese investment fund.
Trump posited that the cozy relationship that Hunter Biden had with China was part of the reason that China enjoyed good relations with former President Barack Obama’s administration.
“That’s probably why China, for so many years, has had a sweetheart deal, where China rips off the USA,” Trump said.
The president also repeated his call for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, when asked again by reporters what he thought Ukranian officials should do with Biden.
“I would think that if they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the Bidens,” he said. “It’s a very simple answer. They should investigate the Bidens.”
Trump said that Hunter Biden was obviously not qualified for the board position of a Ukranian energy company as his father was leading a crackdown on corruption in the country.
“Nobody has any doubt that they weren’t crooked, that was a crooked deal 100 percent,” he said.
Biden flatly denied Trump’s allegations in a speech on Thursday, insisting that he did nothing wrong in Ukraine.
He berated Trump for asking the Ukrainian president to investigate him, calling his conversation an abuse of power.
“He did it because like bully in history he’s afraid, he’s afraid of just how badly he will be beaten in November… of 2020,” Biden said.
The former vice president pushed back against Trump’s accusations in a speech on Thursday, vowing to stay in the race.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Biden said to Trump. “You are not going to destroy me and you’re not going to destroy my family. I don’t care how much money you spend Mr. President or how dirty the attacks get.”
But Trump told reporters that Biden was “going down” because of the obvious corruption in China and Ukraine.
“I think that Biden is going down and I think this whole situation, because now you may very well find that there are many other countries that they scammed, just like they scammed China and Ukraine,” Trump said. “And basically who are they really scamming? The USA and that’s not good.”
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