Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer defended former Vice President Joseph R. Biden against claims that his son leveraged the family name for foreign cash, saying Sunday there was “not a scintilla of evidence that there was wrongdoing by Joe Biden.”
She referenced an earlier interview with Republican National Committee chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, who had urged news outlets to dig into the influence-peddling allegations against Hunter Biden.
“You just asked Ronna Romney if there was a scintilla of evidence that there was wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and she was able to produce none because none exists,” said Ms. Whitmer on “Fox News Sunday.”
Ms. Whitmer, a Democrat, sought to transition to the novel coronavirus crisis — “we’ve got COVID numbers increasing all across the country” — before host Chris Wallace steered her back, saying that Hunter Biden’s business dealing “sure sounds like influence peddling.”
“I think Joe has sat for questions, he has answered these questions,” Ms. Whitmer said. “The American people aren’t going to be distracted from the fact that this election is about the dinner table issues, and the dinner table issue of 2020 is a Trump administration has never been able to have a national strategy on COVID.”
Ms. McDaniel chided media outlets for showing little interest in the story, which was all but ignored on the Sunday talk shows, with the notable exception of Fox News.
“What’s even more disturbing, Chris, is Twitter is censoring these stories,” Ms. McDaniel said. “The press is saying this has been debunked without even investigating it. Why are they doing that? Why are they covering for this story?”
She added, “If this were the Trump family and this laptop had emerged, it would be all over the news 24/7.”
Twitter froze the New York Post’s account since it broke the story on Oct. 14. The newspaper has said it has been told that the account will remain locked until its Hunter Biden tweets linking to its stories are removed.
Senate Republicans are looking into emails reportedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop, which is in possession of the FBI. Tony Bobulinski, a former partner in Hunter Biden’s company, released emails Friday linking the former vice president to his son’s business dealings with China.
They include emails showing Hunter Biden talking about the “family brand” in discussions of investments, and another partner warning Mr. Bobulinski: “don’t mention Joe being involved. It’s only when u are face to face.”
“I just saw behind the Biden curtain and I grew concerned with what I saw,” said Mr. Bobulinski, who said he was interviewed Friday by the FBI. “The Biden family aggressively leveraged the Biden family name to make millions of dollars from foreign entities even though some were from communist controlled China.”
Mr. Biden said during Thursday’s debate that “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life” and that “my son has not made money” from China, even though a Senate joint committee report released last month said that Hunter Biden’s law firm took millions in legal and consulting fees from a Chinese client.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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