Joe Biden’s campaign ‘looks like’ it is coming to an end because of reports about the former vice president’s possible misconduct in Ukraine, a top Republican lawmaker predicted on Sunday.
House Rep. Devin Nunes of California also told Fox News that Democrats’ attempts to portray President Trump’s actions in Ukraine as a scandal will backfire.
‘These stories [about Biden] first originated back when Hillary Clinton was trying to make sure Biden didn’t get in the race,’ Nunes said.
‘So now that these have been resurrected, I don’t know who came up with the scheme – maybe this whistleblower really is not a partisan.
House Rep. Devin Nunes, a Republican from California, predicted on Sunday that Joe Biden’s campaign would end over reports of alleged misconduct in Ukraine
‘We want to hear from that whistleblower, but it sure looks like the scheme has backfired.
‘And, like I said, it looks like this is the end of Biden’s campaign. I really do… his lead is basically down to zero.’
A whistleblower in the intelligence community lodged a complaint alleging that the president made a ‘promise’ to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25.
It has been reported that the president pressured Zelensky to instruct government officials in Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter.
When Joe Biden was vice president, he pressured Ukraine to fire a top prosecutor who at the time was investigating a Ukrainian gas company.
At the time, Hunter Biden held a directorship with the company, which included a $50,000-a-month salary.
Democrats are now demanding that the contents of the whistleblower complaint be made public.
If Trump used aid to Ukraine as leverage in order to force the country to investigate a political opponent, it could be grounds for impeachment, Democrats say.
But Nunes dismissed Democrats’ claims. The California Republican compared the whistleblower issue with the Mueller investigation, which found that there was not enough evidence indicating that Trump colluded with Russia.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is seen above at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday
‘The more I think that they’re out there promoting this kind of craziness and silliness, the more that the American people are put off, and the more likely President Trump is reelected,’ Nunes said.
Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel to investigate claims that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections.
Mueller, in his report, said there did not appear to be a conspiracy between Trump and Russia, though he left open the possibility that the president obstructed justice.
‘This has all the hallmarks of the Russia hoax,’ Nunes said.
‘Something leaks out. … and then it’s the same reporters that report on it, the same reporters that reported on the Russia hoax.
‘Then you move forward, and what happens? Then supposedly they come and testify – and the night before they testify, the whistleblower who supposedly doesn’t want anybody to know who this person is, or what information they have, well, it’s spilled all over the pages of the Washington Post’ before Congress is briefed on the matter.
Nunes added: ‘Whoever came up with this scheme – it looks like somebody was trying to deflect what Biden did back in 2015.
A new poll shows Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts leading for the first time in Iowa. Warren is seen far left with striking General Motors workers in Hamtramck, Michigan on Sunday
‘This scheme seems to have backfired on Biden. I mean, Biden’s already dropping in the polls.’
A recent poll shows Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts pulling ahead of Biden in Iowa – the first time since the campaign began that the former vice president is polled behind one of his competitors.
Trump suggested Sunday that he raised the issue of Hunter Biden in a summer phone call with Ukraine’s new leader, as Democrats pressed for investigations into whether Trump improperly used his office to try to dig up damaging information about a political rival.
Trump told reporters that the July 25 call with Zelensky was ‘congratulatory’ and focused on corruption in the East European nation.
In his remarks to reporters, he then raised Biden as an example, although there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden or his son Hunter, who was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
‘It was largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son, creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,’ Trump said as he left the White House for a trip to Texas.
Biden, meanwhile, accused Trump of making a baseless political smear.
The matter has sparked a fierce debate over whether Trump misused his office for political gain and whether his administration is withholding from Congress critical information about his actions.
The incident is part of a whistleblower complaint, but the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has refused to share details with lawmakers, citing presidential privilege.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has resisted calls for impeachment for other alleged Trump transgressions, said Sunday that unless Maguire provides information to Congress, administration officials ‘will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation.’
President Donald Trump admitted Sunday that he did mention Joe Biden during a call about ‘corruption’ with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He insisted the only talk was about corruption, and did not address reports of him trying to pressure the Ukrainian leader
A whistle-blower alleged that in a call with Zelensky in July, Trump pressured him to prosecute former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden (left) to hurt Biden’s 2020 campaign. The president has dismissed the story and accusations as ‘ridiculous’
Another impeachment holdout so far, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union that ‘we may very well have crossed the Rubicon here.’
A person familiar with the matter has told The Associated Press that Trump urged Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden.
The person wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
‘Ukraine’s got a lot of problems,’ Trump said at the White House.
‘The new president is saying that he’s going to be able to rid the country of corruption and I said that would be a great thing. We had a great conversation. We had a conversation on many things.’
Hunter Biden was hired by the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings in April 2014, two months after Ukraine’s Russia-friendly president was ousted by protesters and as his father was heavily involved in U.S. efforts to support the new pro-Western government and its pledge to fight corruption.
The hiring of the younger Biden immediately raised concerns that the Ukrainian firm, whose owner was a political ally of the ousted president, was seeking to gain influence with the Obama administration.
Two years later, Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor general, who was accused by many in Ukraine and in the West of being soft on corruption.
Trump has claimed that the prosecutor, who had led an investigation into Burisma’s owner, ‘was after’ Hunter Biden and the vice president was trying to protect his son. There is no evidence of this.
In 2014, Viktor Shokin (left), Ukraine’s top prosecutor, investigated the owner of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden held a directorship. Joe Biden led international efforts to have Shokin fired. He was replaced by Yuriy Lutsenko (right), who dropped the investigation into Burisma’s owner
Trump insisted he said ‘absolutely nothing wrong’ in the call to Zelensky.
He did not answer directly when asked whether he would release a transcript of the conversation to the public.
After arriving in Texas, Trump told reporters he will look into releasing details or a transcript of the call, but stressed that foreign leaders should feel free to speak frankly with an American president without fear that the details of their conversations will later be disclosed.
Trump said if Ukraine released its own transcript it would be the same as his version of the call.
Trump and Zelenskiy plan to meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly later this week.
The president has described the whistleblower as ‘partisan’ but has acknowledged not knowing the identity of the intelligence official who lodged a formal complaint against him with the inspector general for the intelligence community.
The complaint was based on a series of events, including the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy, according to two people familiar with the matter.
They were not authorized to discuss the issue by name and were granted anonymity.
Biden said in Iowa on Saturday that ‘Trump deserves to be investigated’ for ‘trying to intimidate a foreign leader, if that’s what happened.’
Biden said Trump was motivated by politics ‘because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum.’
A leading Republican senator urged the Justice Department to investigate the ‘Biden-Ukraine connection.’
‘We have looked at all things Russia and Trump, his family, everything about his family, every transaction between the Trump campaign and Russia,’ Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures.
Now is the time, he said, to know ‘what relationships, if any, did Biden world have to the Ukraine.’
Michael Atkinson, the U.S. government’s intelligence inspector general, has described the whistleblower’s Aug. 12 complaint as ‘serious’ and ‘urgent,’ but he has not been allowed to turn over the complaint to Congress.
Maguire, the acting intelligence director, has been subpoenaed by Schiff’s committee and is expected to testify publicly on Thursday.
Maguire and Atkinson also are expected to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee this week.