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Trump Asks Putin for Dirt on Biden Family, in Echo of 2016

In an interview Tuesday, former U.S. President Donald Trump specifically asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to release information that Trump believes would implicate the family of U.S. President Joe Biden in financial wrongdoing.

In the interview with the “Just the News” television program on the network Real America’s Voice, Trump suggested that Putin might want to provide the information because he thinks it would harm the United States.

“As long as Putin now is not exactly a fan of our country,” Trump said, the Russian leader might be willing to explain why in 2014 Russian businesswoman Elena Baturina, the wife of the deceased former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, made a $3.5 million payment to a firm Trump supporters have claimed is associated with Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

“I would think Putin would know the answer to that,” Trump said. “I think he should release it.”

Trump characterized the payment as having been made to the “Biden family,” but it was actually made to an entity called Rosemont Seneca Thornton. Hunter Biden was an original founder of the investment fund Rosemont Seneca, but his attorney said that he had no connection with or interest in Rosemont Seneca Thornton.

“Hunter Biden had no interest in and was not a ‘co-founder’ of Rosemont Seneca Thornton, so the claim that he was paid $3.5 million is false,” the attorney, George Mesires, told PolitiFact in September 2020.

While Hunter Biden’s business dealings have been under investigation by federal prosecutors since at least 2018, the information about the payment from Baturina was revealed in a Republican-led Senate inquiry. The report provided no evidence that the payment was corrupt or associated with Hunter Biden’s investment fund in any way.

‘No parallels’

Experts in American politics struggled to find another instance in which a former U.S. president had solicited damaging information about a sitting president’s family from the leader of one of the country’s most significant geostrategic rivals.

“Don’t bother to look for parallels because it’s completely unparalleled,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told VOA. “This is an example of complete self-absorption and elevation of personal interest over the country’s interests.”

Sabato added, “That is something that, it goes without saying, should be beneath the dignity of any former president. But it’s not beneath Donald Trump’s dignity.”

It was difficult to find Republicans in Washington defending the former president’s comments on Wednesday. Utah Senator Mitt Romney told reporters, “I don’t think Vladimir Putin ought to be one of the people we go to for favors right now.”

Echoes of 2016 campaign

Trump’s public call for Putin to release information about Biden’s son echoed his request, during the 2016 presidential campaign, for Moscow to release emails belonging to his then-opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said in July 2016. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Whether by coincidence or not, a special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election later determined that Russian hackers made their first attempt to break into computers in Clinton’s personal office on the same day as Trump’s request.

Also on Tuesday, Evgeny Popov, a member of the Russian Duma and the host of a program on state-run television, said during a broadcast that it was time for Russian citizens to call on U.S. citizens to end Biden’s term early, “and to again help our partner Trump to become president.”

Hunter Biden investigation

Hunter Biden’s business dealings have been a target of intense interest among Trump and his political allies. In 2018, the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, David Weiss, opened an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business activities in several foreign countries.

When Joe Biden took office in 2021, he left the Trump-appointed Weiss in office, in order to avoid the appearance of interfering in the investigation into his son.

Media reports indicate that the investigation into Hunter Biden has not only continued but has picked up pace.

Trump’s efforts to dig up dirt on the younger Biden related to his seat on the board of directors of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma led to his first impeachment. In a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2019, Trump appeared to condition the sale of military equipment to Ukraine on Zelenskyy’s willingness to do him a “favor” by announcing an investigation into the Bidens.

Biden’s membership on the Burisma board had raised eyebrows for a number of reasons. He was paid a generous $50,000 per month, despite having no apparent expertise in the energy business. Also, his father was in charge of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy at the time.

No evidence has been made public suggesting that any decisions Joe Biden made while vice president were meant to aid his son’s business ventures.

Chinese energy firm

On Tuesday, The Washington Post published an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China. The report relied on data from a laptop computer that Biden was purported to have left at a computer repair store and that was later turned over to the FBI.

Allies of Trump tried to get journalists to investigate the laptop during the 2020 election campaign, but many balked because of the circumstances under which the data from the machine was obtained. The owner of the store copied the computer’s hard drive before turning the device over to the FBI. The copied hard drive then found its way into the hands of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, who had actively worked to have Ukrainian officials announce an investigation into the Bidens.

The Post said it was able to independently verify the accuracy of some of the data on the machine.

Among other things, the Post story revealed that over 14 months, beginning in 2017, Hunter Biden’s company received $4.8 billion in payments from a Chinese energy conglomerate called CEFC China Energy. None of the energy projects that Biden discussed with the firm ever took shape, the paper reported, and one of the executives of CEFC was arrested by U.S. authorities for bribery.
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US Congress Moves Closer to Passing Major China Legislation

The U.S. Congress is one step closer this week to passing major legislation addressing competitiveness with China. The America Competes Act passed the U.S. Senate on Monday on a vote of 68-28, setting the stage for the legislation to be reconciled in the U.S. House of Representatives for final passage. A significantly different version of that legislation passed the U.S. House in February on a vote of 222-210. 

The White House welcomed progress on the legislation in a statement Monday night, saying “there is clear bipartisan support for the sorts of investments the president has long championed — like boosting domestic manufacturing, supporting our innovators and helping them take their ideas from the lab to the factory floor, as well as addressing supply chain bottlenecks like semiconductors that are raising prices on the middle class.” 

The multibillion-dollar legislation addresses the U.S. supply chain and research, as well as development issues, to lessen dependence on Chinese-manufactured products by providing $52 billion for the U.S. manufacture of semiconductors, and $2 billion for the manufacture of critical electronics, defense and automobile components. 

The legislation also addresses human rights and democracy issues by providing funding for U.S.-Taiwan cultural exchanges, recognizing Taiwan as part of the U.S.’s Indo-Pacific strategy, and ending a prohibition of displaying the Taiwanese flag during official visits to the U.S. 

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner tweeted Tuesday, “Passing the America COMPETES Act would mean taking real action towards addressing long-term inflation and making a targeted investment in American manufacturing. I’ve been working on this bill from the beginning, and I’m ready to get it done.” 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the process of reconciling the Senate and House versions would begin by the end of this week. 

“I believe this bill will go down as one of the most important steps Congress can take toward creating more American jobs, fixing our supply chains, and refueling another generation of American ingenuity that will strengthen our economy for a long, long time,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. 

While the legislation has some bipartisan support, one top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees said it did not do enough. 

In a speech about the threat posed by Communist China at the conservative research group Heritage Foundation, Senator Marco Rubio referred to the America Competes Act as “this so-called China bill.” 

Rubio said “it takes meaningful steps toward reinvesting in our nation’s capabilities. So, there’s good things in that bill, but it doesn’t build sufficient safeguards to protect taxpayer-funded research and industrial investment. And it’s because of pressure from universities and industry, support of billions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars into activities that the Chinese are stealing now, except with less money. Now they’ll just have access to more to steal.” 

Rubio went on to argue that the problem cannot truly be solved until China stops lobbying American companies to protect its interest. Rubio said his legislation blocking imports made with slave labor has received opposition from American companies. 

“They were more interested in appeasing the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping because that allows them to maximize their profit margins, are interested in that, than doing what is both morally right and good for their country,” Rubio said Tuesday.  

In response to passage of the bill, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, told reporters, “The China-related content of the relevant bills disregards the facts, exaggerates the theory of the China threat, advocates strategic competition with China, and is full of Cold War zero-sum thinking, which runs counter to the common desire of all walks of life in China and the United States to strengthen exchanges and cooperation. China firmly opposes this and will firmly defend its own interests.” 
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Biden Defiant, Cites ‘Moral Outrage’ as Reason for Putin Comments

U.S. President Joe Biden’s whirlwind diplomatic tour of Europe might be most remembered by his words about Russian President Vladimir Putin: “This man cannot remain in power.” Two days after his utterance, Biden clarified that although he won’t back down from the sentiment, the U.S. did not plan to take Putin out of office. VOA’s Anita Powell reports, from the White House, on what this means as this Ukraine conflict enters a second month.
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Democrats Push Toward Vote on Jackson for Supreme Court

The Senate Judiciary Committee is pushing Ketanji Brown Jackson closer to confirmation, setting up a vote next week to recommend her nomination to the full Senate and seat her as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. 

Jackson appears to be on a glidepath to confirmation by mid-April, even if she doesn’t receive the bipartisan votes that President Joe Biden has sought. Democrats can confirm her without one Republican vote in the 50-50 Senate, as long as every Democrat supports her. Vice President Kamala Harris can break a tie. 

At a brief meeting Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin set the committee vote for April 4 and praised Jackson’s answers during four days of hearings last week that often grew contentious. Republicans on the committee — led by several senators who are eyeing presidential runs — spent much of the hearings focused on her sentencing decisions in a handful of child pornography cases during her nine years as a federal judge in an effort to paint her as too lenient on the criminals. 

Durbin criticized the Republican focus on the issue, saying the GOP senators asked “the toughest, meanest questions and then race to Twitter to see if somebody is tweeting.” In a Senate floor speech shortly afterward, Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, one of the Republicans who asked Jackson repeatedly about the pornography cases, defended her colleagues, saying the questioning was “not an attack.” 

The partisan spat threatened to divide Jackson’s confirmation down party lines as Republicans drew her nomination into a midterm campaign push to paint Democrats as soft on crime. Durbin, who like Biden wants a bipartisan vote, said he hopes other Republicans “will not be discouraged” by the back-and-forth when considering whether to support the historic nomination. 

So far, no Republicans have said they will vote for her. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the GOP leader, cited the Republicans’ concerns about her sentencing history, along with her support from liberal advocacy groups, in announcing Thursday that he “cannot and will not” back her. 

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who met with Jackson for more than an hour and a half earlier this month, is the most likely GOP senator to vote for her. After their meeting, Collins said she believes Jackson takes “a very thorough, careful approach in applying the law to the facts of the case, and that is what I want to see in a judge.” 

Jackson would be the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She would also be the first former public defender on the court, and the first justice with experience representing indigent criminal defendants since Marshall. 

Pushing back on the Republicans’ questions about her sentencing in child pornography crimes, Jackson said during the hearings that sentencing is not a “numbers game.” She noted that there are no mandatory sentences for sex offenders and that there has been significant debate on the subject. Some of those cases have given her nightmares, Jackson said, and were “among the worst that I have seen.” 

White House spokesman Andrew Bates on Monday said the questioning was in “bad faith,” and that many of the Republicans had voted for GOP-nominated judges who had also sentenced defendants beneath federal guidelines, as Jackson did. 

The April 4 vote will set up a week of procedural maneuvers on the Senate floor aimed at securing Jackson’s confirmation by the end of the week. Durbin said he still has hope for some Republican votes by then. 

“I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take a look at this woman and what she will bring to the Court,” Durbin said. “She is the best and deserves our support.” 

 
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‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Signed by Florida Governor DeSantis

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law on Monday that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, a policy that has drawn intense national scrutiny from critics who argue it marginalizes LGBTQ people. 

The legislation has pushed Florida and DeSantis, an ascending Republican and potential 2024 presidential candidate, to the forefront of the country’s culture wars. LGBTQ advocates, students, Democrats, the entertainment industry and the White House have dubbed the measure the “Don’t Say Gay” law. 

DeSantis and other Republicans have repeatedly said the measure was reasonable and that parents, not teachers, should be broaching subjects of sexual orientation and gender identity with their children. The law went into effect just days after DeSantis signed a separate bill that potentially restricts what books elementary schools can keep in their libraries or use for instruction. 

“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” DeSantis said to applause before he signed the sexual orientation and gender identity measure during a ceremony at a preparatory school outside Tampa. 

The law states that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” Parents would be able to sue districts over violations. 

Swift condemnation 

Public backlash began almost immediately after the bill was introduced, with early criticism lobbed by Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and condemnation from LGBTQ advocacy groups. Democratic President Joe Biden called it “hateful.” 

As the bill moved through the Florida Legislature, celebrities mobilized against it on social media and criticized it at this year’s Academy Awards. Florida students staged walkouts and packed into committee rooms and statehouse halls to protest the measure, often with booming chants of “We say gay!” 

The Walt Disney Company, a powerful player in Florida politics, suspended its political donations in the state, and LGBTQ advocates who work for the company criticized CEO Bob Chapek for what they said was his slow response in speaking out against the bill. Some walked off the job in protest. 

After DeSantis signed the measure, Disney released a statement saying, “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.” 

Throughout debate in the GOP-controlled statehouse, Democrats have said the law’s language, particularly the phrases “classroom instruction” and “age appropriate,” could be interpreted so broadly that discussion in any grade could trigger lawsuits and create a classroom atmosphere where teachers would avoid the subjects entirely. 

“The bill’s intentionally vague language leaves teachers afraid to talk to their students and opens up school districts to costly and frivolous litigation from those seeking to exclude LGBTQ people from any grade level,” said state Representative Carlos G. Smith, a Democrat who is gay. “Even worse, #DontSayGay sends a hateful message to our most vulnerable youth who simply need our support.” 

Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, said the law amounts to a political wedge issue for Republicans because elementary schools, especially in kindergarten through third grade, do not teach about these subjects and have state curriculum standards guiding classroom lessons. 

“This bill is based on a falsehood, and that falsehood is that somehow we’re teaching kids inappropriate topics at an early age, and clearly we’re not,” Spar said. 

‘Empowers parents’ 

The law’s sponsor, Republican state Representative Joe Harding, has said it would not bar spontaneous discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity in schools but would prevent districts from integrating the subjects into official curriculum. During the bill’s early stages, Harding sought to require schools to inform parents if a student came out as LGBTQ to a teacher. He withdrew the amendment after it picked up attention online. 

“Nothing in the amendment was about outing a student. Rather than battle misinformation related to the amendment, I decided to focus on the primary bill that empowers parents to be engaged in their children’s lives,” he said in a statement. 

DeSantis signed the bill after a news conference held at the Classical Preparatory School in Spring Hill, about 74 kilometers north of Tampa. At the ceremony, several young children accompanied DeSantis and other politicians near the podium, with some holding signs bearing the governor’s “Protect Children/Support Parents” slogan. DeSantis gave the children the pens he used to sign the bill. 

The White House, which has sparred with the DeSantis administration over a range of policies, has issued statements against the law. “My Administration will continue to fight for dignity and opportunity for every student and family — in Florida and around the country,” Biden tweeted Monday. 

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona recently held a call with LGBTQ students in Florida and said in a statement issued Monday that his agency “will be monitoring this law upon implementation to evaluate whether it violates federal civil rights law.” 

For teachers in Florida, the law has caused some confusion over what is allowed in the classroom as well as concerns over frivolous lawsuits, said Michael Woods, a special education teacher in Palm Beach County with about three decades of experience. 

“From the start, I thought it was a solution in search of a problem, and the sad part about it is, I think it’s going to have a chilling effect on making sure that young people, students have a safe learning environment,” he said. 

 
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