COTTON JOINS in GOP call for answers on Bidens.
WASHINGTON — With Democrats accusing President Donald Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors, Republicans focused Thursday on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
During impeachment trial opening arguments, House Democratic managers accused Trump of abusing his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and withholding nearly $400 million in military aid.
“The entire quid pro quo … was corrupt. Officials knew this. Ukrainians knew this, too. And I think, deep down, we all know it, and I think the American people know it,” said U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, one of the House managers.
Republicans, who begin their opening arguments Saturday, sat in silence while House managers laid out the case.
But during breaks, they portrayed Trump as an anti-corruption crusader alarmed by Biden-related business dealings.
In a string of back-to-back television interviews Thursday evening at the Capitol, Republicans quickly pivoted from the White House incumbent to the high-polling Democratic presidential challenger and Burisma, the Ukrainian company that once had Hunter Biden on its board.
Republican senators offered few details about Hunter Biden’s activities and provided no proof of illegal conduct. But they voiced plenty of doubts, and they promised to demand answers.
“The House Democrats put Joe Biden and Hunter Biden at the center of their case, and that case is very weak when they’re trying to defend Hunter Biden for going to work for a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch for $50[,000] or $80,000 a month at the very time Joe Biden was running Ukraine policy for the Obama administration and then intervened in Ukraine to have the prosecutor investigating that oligarch fired,” U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told Fox News.
“There’s a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of suspicion about what happened with Burisma and Hunter Biden,” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told another interviewer.
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said more scrutiny of the Bidens is coming.
“So much of the House’s case turns on Hunter Biden, Burisma and saying that there was no corruption,” he said.
Democrats accused Trump’s Senate allies of attempting to muddy the waters.
“This is a total sideshow,” said U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
“The whole basis of the charges against the president relate to him withholding vital military assistance to Ukraine and a White House meeting in exchange for getting them to open investigations into the Bidens because the president wanted to try to smear a political rival who has a good chance of defeating him,” Van Hollen said. “It was a total abuse of power.”
In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Cotton said House managers had strengthened the case for scrutinizing the Bidens by mentioning them so often during Thursday’s arguments.
“I was astonished at how central Joe Biden and Hunter Biden was to the Democrats’ case today. They have elevated the Bidens’ role in this matter to the centerpiece and, if we call any witnesses, I think they have to be among the first two on the list,” Cotton said.
Hunter Biden’s withholding of financial information in an Arkansas paternity case also raises red flags, he said.
“In Arkansas, it’s astonishing that the judge in his child support suit has ordered him to appear in person — in person — to answer questions why he refuses to turn over what is very routine information in any child support suit, information about his sources of income over the last few years and his tax returns, raising to me the question of why he is fighting that so hard,” he added.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., portrayed the Biden attacks as a diversionary tactic.
“What Hunter Biden did is totally irrelevant to this proceeding. But their effort is really to change the subject and distract attention to the Bidens. But it’s also part of the effort to smear and sabotage Donald Trump’s political rival. That’s the goal of bringing in Hunter Biden,” he said.