President Donald Trump is fuming that he apparently didn’t know about ongoing federal investigations involving Hunter Biden that pre-date last month’s general election. The President had been hoping for months that a splashy public investigation of Hunter Biden would give his flailing reelection campaign a boost.
Trump’s meltdown over the investigations, which have been kept quiet for years, comes after the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday night that Attorney General Bill Barr had known about investigations involving Hunter Biden’s business and financial dealings since at least this spring and had worked to keep them out of public view in an effort to avoid appearing to impact the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential election. The probe, which began in 2018, predates Barr’s tenure as attorney general.
“Why didn’t the Fake News Media, the FBI and the DOJ report the Biden matter BEFORE the Election,” Trump wrote in a Thursday night tweet.
By Friday morning, Trump went so far as to assert in another tweet that news of the Hunter Biden investigations exonerated the President and his infamous July 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump said that call, in which he attempted to extort the Ukrainian leader to dig up dirt on Biden’s son and announce an investigation, was now “even better” than perfect. The pressure campaign ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment.
Now it turns out that my phone call to the President of Ukraine, which many, including me, have called “perfect”, was even better than that. I predicted Biden corruption, said to call the A.G., who perhaps knew of the corruption during the impeachment hoax?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2020
The investigation in Delaware into the younger Biden’s financial and business dealings that made headlines this week as part of a criminal tax investigation does not implicate President-elect Joe Biden, who Trump has taken great pains to smear.
Another investigation involving Hunter Biden in Manhattan is part of a broader criminal investigation and, in spite of Trump’s longstanding ambition to condemn Biden for “corruption,” its outcome is unknown. According to the Journal’s reporting, Hunter Biden was not a specific target for criminal prosecution in the probe.
Minutes later on Friday morning, Trump tweeted that the U.S. Supreme Court should get involved — presumably suggesting that, in light of the investigations and so-called “scandal” surrounding Hunter Biden, the high court now had reason to “do what everybody knows has to be done.”
Now that the Biden Administration will be a scandal plagued mess for years to come, it is much easier for the Supreme Court of the United States to follow the Constitution and do what everybody knows has to be done. They must show great Courage & Wisdom. Save the USA!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2020
The comments come amid ongoing efforts by Trump to overturn election results in several battleground states won by Biden. Trump has had little luck with Barr, who notably broke from Trump when he told the Associate Press in an interview that he had not seen enough evidence of fraud that would overturn election results.
In October, as Biden gained momentum in the polls, Trump’s Republican allies in Congress dug into the campaign to smear Biden and his son, urging Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden.
When asked at the time whether he supported the call for a special prosecutor, Trump told Fox News that he wanted action from Barr.
“We’ve got to get the attorney general to act. He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast. He’s got to appoint somebody. This is major corruption and this has to be known about before the election.”
Feeling the sting of Barr’s silence and calling on the Supreme Court now, Trump appears to be making an even more absurd plea to use news of the investigations to justify his effort to swindle last month’s election, which he decisively lost.
