Democrats Pursue Trump Probe on Ukraine Despite Risks for Biden
Democrats Pursue Trump Probe on Ukraine Despite Risks for Biden
(Bloomberg) -- The controversy over whether President Donald Trump improperly pressed Ukraine’s leader to investigate Joe Biden and his family gives Democrats a new angle of attack, but one that carries significant risks for the party.
Three House committees announced earlier this month that they were investigating whether Trump used the withholding of military aid as leverage to get Ukraine’s new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to probe the Bidens -- an allegation that has been bolstered by a new whistle-blower complaint from inside the U.S. intelligence community.
Democrats could turn up damaging information about Trump’s dealings with a foreign leader by conducting a full-scale inquiry, but they could also give a lot of additional air time to allegations about Biden, linking their party’s 2020 presidential front-runner to a whiff of corruption, whether or not the evidence backs that up. The last thing Democrats want is another candidate on the defensive, after Trump was able to cast doubt on Hillary Clinton in 2016.
There’s also the overhang of Democratic disappointment after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump and Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. Trump claimed vindication after Mueller’s probe ended without charging him with a crime -- even though several of the president’s aides and confidants were charged and pleaded guilty. Mueller also made clear he was constrained by Justice Department policy against filing obstruction of justice charges against a sitting president.
The presidential campaign could be further disrupted if Democrats bring Biden -- or his son Hunter -- before the committees to testify about the matter. That would risk providing more awkward images for Biden that could damage his central pitch to voters that he’s the best candidate to defeat Trump.
The Biden campaign has called for a House investigation into Trump’s July 25 call with Zelenskiy and for a transcript of the conversation to be released. The campaign also has vigorously disputed the allegations about impropriety by the candidate or by Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of Burisma Group, one of Ukraine’s biggest gas companies.
“Any article, segment, analysis and commentary that does not demonstrably state at the outset that there is no factual basis for Trump’s claims, and in fact that they are wholly discredited, is misleading readers and viewers,” Kate Bedingfield, deputy campaign manager, wrote in a memo on Saturday.
Shifting Conversation
Even so, the risks are real for Biden. Trump is adept at flipping allegations of his own wrongdoing into a narrative of victimization in which he is unjustly pursued by “unhinged” Democrats.
Trump’s allies in Congress “want to shift the conversation to the victim of this deplorable action by the president,” said Representative Gerald Connolly, a Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Democrats should not allow this. And the media shouldn’t allow it.”
Trump has denied any inappropriate conversations with Ukraine.
“No I didn’t. No I didn’t,” said Trump on Monday in New York, when asked whether he told the Ukrainian leader he would withhold military aid unless Biden and his family were investigated, though he then equivocated on whether he’d agree to release the transcript of their phone conversation.
But he said Biden essentially did just that, back when he was vice president.
“Joe Biden is the one that did a very, very bad thing when he said that. And I think it was $1.2 billion he wasn’t going to give unless they got rid of a prosecutor who was investigating his son and the company that his son works for,” said Trump.
“Quid Pro Joe,” was the theme of press release blasted from the Republican National Committee on Monday.
Biden threatened to withhold U.S. aid in 2016 unless Ukraine fired its top prosecutor, who was considered corrupt by the Obama administration and by a number of European allies. Bloomberg News reported in May that prosecutors had already shelved the investigation into the gas company’s owners by 2015. That suggests Biden and his son didn’t stand to benefit from the prosecutor’s ouster.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview Monday that the Justice Department should investigate “all things Ukraine,” just as Trump was investigated regarding Russia.
“This isn’t about Biden. This is about Trump,” responded Connolly of Virginia. In fact, he said, “I think we’ve reached the tipping point. I think we must proceed with impeachment.”
Turning Point
A majority of House Democrats say Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other reluctant Democratic leaders should endorse Trump’s impeachment after months of hesitation. Pelosi has acknowledged that House investigations of Trump may be at a turning point with his refusal to allow Congress to see the whistle-blower’s complaint.
The whistle-blower -- an intelligence official who was on detail to the White House -- raised concerns about the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy, as well as other actions that haven’t yet been made public, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire is being called to testify Thursday before the House Intelligence Committee about why he and the administration are refusing to turn over the still-mysterious complaint to Chairman Adam Schiff and his panel, as they say the law requires.
Moderate Democrats in the House are demanding full disclosure from the administration, and stonewalling by Maguire would probably prompt more of them to join the calls for a formal impeachment inquiry, according to a House Democratic aide close to them.
Two Democrats representing swing districts -- Angie Craig and Dean Phillips, both of Minnesota -- shifted their position toward impeachment on Monday, citing the allegations regarding Trump’s call with Zelenskiy. And seven freshmen Democrats who had not expressed support for impeachment wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday night that “if these allegations are true, we believe these actions represent an impeachable offense.”
The Democratic caucus will meet Tuesday afternoon to discuss how to proceed on the allegations, according to two aides briefed on the meeting.
Republicans have made clear they will ensure that any investigation sustains questions about Hunter Biden’s time on the board of Burisma while his father was vice president.
“I think this is probably the end of his campaign,” Representative Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said of Joe Biden during a Sunday appearance on Fox News.
‘Mueller Debacle’
Former House Republican Dennis Ross of Florida said he believes Democrats are risking another disappointment in Trump investigations akin to the Mueller findings.
“It would be risky, in light of the Mueller debacle, for Dems to pursue this in the political arena,” he said. “I think such a move inures to the benefit of Trump.”
Yet there may simply be too much pressure from Democrats for leaders to resist an in-depth probe, particularly in the midst of the presidential nominating contest.
“The notion they’d avoid an investigation into any alleged crimes committed by Trump because it could harm one of roughly 20 presidential hopefuls doesn’t hold water,” said Josh Huder, a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University in Washington.
“For most House Democrats, they likely want to know the truth about that phone call with Ukraine more than they want to protect former VP Biden from a potential future political difficulty,” he said.
--With assistance from Tyler Pager, Chris Strohm, Steven T. Dennis and Erik Wasson.
To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert, Anna Edgerton
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