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The Daily

What the Bidens Actually Did in Ukraine

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.3107.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2019

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Yesterday, we looked at the origins of President Trump’s baseless theory that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 election. This theory inspired one of the two investigations he sought from Ukraine that triggered the impeachment inquiry. Today, we look at the origins of the president’s second theory. Guest: Kenneth P. Vogel, a reporter in The New York Times’s Washington bureau. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s diplomatic record on corruption in Ukraine contradicts President Trump’s claims.There are a lot of accusations flying back and forth between the president and the former vice president. Let us help you sort them out.

Transcript

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0:00.0

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is the Daily.

0:09.2

Yesterday, we looked at the origin of President Trump's theory that Ukraine,

0:14.6

not Russia, meddled in the 2016 election, one of the two theories that he asked Ukraine's president

0:21.6

to investigate. Today, Trump's second theory. It's Wednesday, November 27th.

0:35.2

So when Trump goes on Fox and Friends on Friday for this long stream of conscious phone

0:41.6

interview, he reiterates his theory, totally debunked theory about the Ukrainians and not the Russians

0:50.0

hacking into the DNC servers, and then he also brings up this other theory.

0:55.0

So, Mr. President, the accusation is this that you're using aid taxpayer dollars to attack a

1:02.8

political opponent in Joe Biden. And that has to do with Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden,

1:09.2

and their work in Ukraine. Ken Vogel is a Washington correspondent for the Times.

1:14.7

And I will tell you this about Joe Biden. I never said it specifically on him, but I watched

1:21.1

Joe Biden with the prosecutor, who a lot of people said was a great prosecutor and they took him off.

1:27.2

And he was prosecuting that company. And the kid who never made 10 cents in his life,

1:33.8

and all of a sudden is making millions of dollars today.

1:37.4

Ken, what exactly is the president's second theory here about the Biden's?

1:41.7

What Trump alleges is that Joe Biden, during his time as vice president,

1:46.7

pressured the Ukrainian government to fire their top prosecutors, essentially their attorney general,

1:52.5

because that prosecutor was pursuing an investigation into this energy company in Ukraine that was paying

2:00.6

Hunter Biden as a board member and that the reason why Joe Biden pushed for the firing was to protect

2:07.1

Hunter Biden and his employer. So the theory is basically that the vice president does a favor

2:13.0

for his son in the form of official action in Ukraine. Correct. Okay, so where does the story

2:19.8

behind that claim begin? You got to go back to 2014. 44-year-old Hunter Biden,

...

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