Hillary Clinton slammed President Donald Trump on Friday after his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani admitted to asking Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, who is currently the Democratic front-runner to challenge Trump in next year’s presidential election.
“The president asked a foreign power to help him win an election. Again,” the former secretary of state tweeted, referring to Trump’s call during the 2016 race for Russia to look into Clinton’s deleted emails.
Clinton’s tweet included a video of Giuliani’s comments on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” Thursday, when Chris Cuomo pressed the former New York mayor over conversations he’d had with a Ukrainian official about Biden’s possible role in that government’s dismissal of a prosecutor who had investigated the former vice president’s son, Hunter.
“Did you ask the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden?” Cuomo asked Giuliani.
“No, actually I didn’t. I asked the Ukraine to investigate the allegations that there was interference in the election of 2016 by the Ukrainians for the benefit of Hillary Clinton, for which there is already a court finding,” Giuliani responded.
“You never asked anything about Hunter Biden? You never asked anything about Joe Biden and his role with the prosecutor?” Cuomo asked.
“The only thing I asked about Joe Biden is to get to the bottom of how it was that (Yuriy) Lutsenko, who was appointed, dismissed the case,” Giuliani said.
“So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?” Cuomo pressed.
“Of course I did,” Giuliani said.
When asked about his contradicting answer, Giuliani said he “didn’t ask” for Biden to be investigated specifically, but asked Ukraine “to look into the allegations that related to my client, which tangentially involved Joe Biden in a massive bribery scheme.”
Asked Friday if he discussed the former vice president with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump said it “doesn’t matter what I discussed” but that someone should look into Biden.
During the 2016 campaign, then-candidate Trump called on Russia, China and other hackers to turn over Clinton’s emails.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said in July 2016.
Then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer later said Trump was “joking” when he publicly asked Russia to hack his Democratic rival.