'It's a last ditch effort to smear me and my family. There is no basis to this.' Joe Biden breaks silence on Hunter's laptop calling Rudy Giuliani Trump's 'henchman' - but doesn't deny emails are genuine
Former Vice President Joe Biden ripped a Republican senator who has used his committee perch to probe Biden's son and blasted Rudy Giuliani for peddling 'garbage' in his most extensive comments since the release of information said to be from Hunter Biden's laptop.
Biden, doing a local TV interview from his Delaware home, exploded when WISN, a Wisconsin ABC affiliate, brought up the subject.
He called it a 'desperate campaign' to smear him.
The angry pushback comes a day before Biden is to face President Donald Trump on a debate stage in Nashville – with Trump gearing up to accuse his rival of 'corruption' on stage just like he did four years ago.
The Milwaukee station's anchor asked Biden about Johnson's efforts as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which last month issued a lengthy report on Hunter Biden 'corruption.'
'Wisconsin's Republican Senator Ron Johnson put out a statement — on Homeland Security letterhead — saying Hunter Biden, together with other Biden family members, profited off the Biden name,' Adrienne Pedersen said.
She asked Biden if there was any 'legitimacy' to what Johnson was claiming.
'None whatsoever!' Biden fumed. 'This is the same garbage Rudy Giuliani, Trump's henchman, it's a last-ditch effort in this desperate campaign to smear me and my family.'
Then he noted that GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah had criticized the committee's actions to dig into the Bidens.
Trump siad Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson should be 'ashamed of himself'
The New York Post published a photograph, said to be found on an abandoned laptop, showing Hunter with a crack pipe in his mouth, left. A series of compromising pictures of Democratic candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter, 50, (above) have been released just weeks ahead of the US election on November 3
'Even the man who served with him on that committee, the former nominee for the Republican Party, said there's no basis to this,' Biden said.
'And the vast majority of the intelligence people have come out and said there's no basis at all. Ron should be ashamed of himself!' he said.
Biden did not however offer any denial of their contents being genuine.
After the New York Post reported on information Rudy Giuliani says came from Hunter's laptop, Johnson said his committee was investigating and had met with a 'whistleblower.'
The angry pushback comes days after Biden briefly teed off on a CBS reporter who asked him about the reports.
'I know you'd ask it,' Biden said, when asked for his response. 'I have no response, it's another smear campaign, right up your alley, those are the questions you always ask.'
Biden's aggressive posture comes after the New York Post released emails and photos purporting to be from Hunter Biden's laptop that Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani says he got from a computer repair shop owner who gave it to his own lawyer.
It contains a trove of information and personal photos purporting to show business connections between Biden and his son.
Rep. Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee,told CNN last week: 'We know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,' a comment that drew furious pushback from Trump's director of national intelligence, who denied it.
Trump has made little secret that he plans to brandish the Hunter Biden issue in the closing weeks of the campaign.
He has picked up Giuliani's remarks that the Biden's are a 'crime family' and accused Joe and Hunter Biden of corruption as his campaign rallies.
He has also joined in 'lock him up' crowd chants at those rallies after tearing into the Bidens.
Trump has also demanded Attorney General Bill Barr appoint a special counsel to investigate the issue, despite Justice Department policies against taking actions that would interfere in an election.
'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,' Trump told 'Fox & Friends' Tuesday.
'This is major corruption and this has to be known about before the election,' Trump said in the call-in appearance on the network.
Trump referred to the device – which a Wilmington computer repair store owner says he provided to the attorney for Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani months ago after a person brought it in and failed to collect it – as the 'laptop from hell.'
'Even if he didn't get all of this money, you can't go to China and have the son walk out with $1.5 billion. ... You can't go to Ukraine with $83,000 a month. ... You can't get $3.5 million from the mayor of Moscow's wife,' he said.
He branded Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani Trump's 'henchman'
Senior federal officials told Fox News on Tuesday that the bureau is now in possession of the computer allegedly containing emails that could purportedly implicate Joe Biden in his son's international business dealings during his time as VP.
Insiders said both the FBI and the Department of Justice have concurred with Ratcliffe's assessment on Monday that there is no evidence to support the files are part of a Russian disinformation scheme.
Law enforcement sources confirmed to the network that the emails in question, which includes one in which Ukrainian official Vadym Pozharskyi thanked Hunter for inviting him to meet his father, were real. However the email itself doesn't say the meeting happened, and the Biden campaign reviewed Bidens schedules and said it didn't.
The FBI, however, has declined to confirm whether or not it is examining the laptop and its contents.
If Trump decides on an all-out Hunter Biden / corruption-themed attack on his rival, Biden got new potential debate ammunition from a New York Times report Tuesday evening that Trump's company has a bank account in China.
The account, held by Trump International Hotels Management, had large amounts of money through it while Trump was in office, according to the Times, which obtained Trump tax returns (Trump has not released them).
In 2017, the firm experienced a jump and had $17.5 million in revenue. Tax records show it paid $188,561 in taxes in the country while the Trump subsidiary pursued licensing deals from 2013 to 2015.
Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten told the paper the company 'opened an account with a Chinese bank having offices in the United States in order to pay the local taxes.' He said that 'no deals, transactions or other business activities ever materialized and, since 2015, the office has remained inactive. Though the bank account remains open, it has never been used for any other purpose,' he said.
The Post obtained a 2015 email provided by Giuliani purportedly from Bursima energy company advisor Vadym Pozharskyi to Hunter thanking him for 'giving an opportunity' to meet Joe Biden.
A 2017 describes 'remuneration packages' for CEFC China Energy Co. It states that 'Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate' and has notations for dividing equity that has Giuliani claiming Joe Biden is in on the deal. It states that there is '20' for 'H' and '10 held by H for the big guy?' – without explaining who the 'big guy' is.
The Biden campaign has blasted the release as a smear, and pointed to Biden's tax returns and financial disclosures, which show no such income. Trump has not released his tax returns, which are the subject of ongoing litigation and a multi-year IRS audit.
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