WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump, ensnared in an impeachment inquiry over his request that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, on Thursday called on China to do the same.
“China should start an investigation into the Bidens,” Trump said in remarks to reporters outside the White House. Trump said he hadn’t directly asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to investigate Biden and his son Hunter but it’s “certainly something we could start thinking about.”
By publicly egging China on to investigate a Democratic political rival, Trump affirmed the approach he made in private to Ukraine’s president that has led to the impeachment investigation by the House. Trump has defended his contact with Ukraine as “perfect” and now is giving broad airing to a similar appeal to China, a nation that has much at stake in its relationship with the United States in an ongoing trade war.
Trump’s comments evoked his public call in 2016 for Russia to release Hillary Clinton’s emails if they had obtained them by hacking _ which U.S. intelligence agencies later determined to be the case.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said during a July 2016 press conference. He later claimed in written answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller that he made the appeal to Russia “in jest and sarcastically, as was apparent to any objective observer.”