Hillary Clinton said President Trump committed an impeachable offense Thursday when he called for Ukraine and China to investigate the family of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden.
Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump’s rival in the 2016 election, made the remark after the president told reporters outside the White House that both countries should investigate Mr. Biden, the 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner, and his son Hunter, effectively repeating a request at the heart of a recently launched impeachment inquiry in Congress.
“Someone should inform the president that impeachable offenses committed on national television still count,” Mrs. Clinton responded on Twitter.
Mrs. Clinton’s tweet referenced an earlier post that included video footage of Mr. Trump making the suggestion hours earlier.
“I think that if they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the Bidens,” Mr. Trump said about Ukraine in the video. “Likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”
Democrats in the House of Representatives initiated an impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump’s actions last week after his administration tried to block Congress from viewing a whistleblower complained filed by a member of the U.S. intelligence community.
The White House later relented and released a rough transcript of a July telephone call that prompted the complaint, and it showed that the president asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate the Bidens while Mr. Trump delayed aid earmarked by Congress for the former Soviet state.
Mr. Trump has denied wrongdoing. He has countered that the Bidens should be investigated because the former vice president, while in office, pushed Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who had investigated a company with business ties to his son.
Mr. Biden has denied that he pushed Ukraine to protect his family, and several past and current Ukrainian government officials have said they are unaware of any evidence to indicate otherwise.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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