Trump allies in U.S. Congress try to turn the table by ramping up investigation on U.S. President’s son
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00:00 Former US President Donald Trump's third and latest indictment on charges he tried to steal the 2020 elections and prevent Joe Biden from officially assuming the presidency has put his allies in Congress and elsewhere seething and sore from this latest political debacle.
00:18 With their helplessness to defend Trump on the merits of the case, Trump's mega-diehards in the House are stepping up their probe on the President's son, whose plea deal on tax evasion and gun possession charges may escalate to corruption and influence peddling alleged crimes, as VOA's Patsy Wittekoswara reports.
00:40 House Republicans have launched an inquiry into the Justice Department's plea deal with Hunter Biden, which fell apart in court last week. The deal called for the President's son to plead guilty to failing to pay his taxes.
00:53 In exchange, prosecutors would drop a separate charge for illegally owning a gun as long as Biden did not violate his two-year probation on the tax charge.
01:03 "What we have to find at the end is that the justice system is fair to all Americans and not one system for the Biden, Inc. family and another for America."
01:11 House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sought to equate Hunter Biden's legal woes with those of former President Donald Trump, who was arraigned for allegedly conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss.
01:23 In a social media post, McCarthy said Trump's indictment is meant to distract from Hunter Biden's case and attack the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
01:34 "By conflating the Hunter Biden charges, which are fairly low level, with a charge we don't see in the United States about an attempt to overthrow an election, it really isn't a comparison. But again, if you're viewing it through a political lens, you're going to see it quite differently than how the law goes."
01:56 Republican lawmakers have threatened an impeachment inquiry over unproven allegations that the president was involved in his son's foreign business dealings. Biden joked about it recently as he touted lower inflation.
02:09 "Maybe they'll decide to impeach me because it's coming down. I don't know. I'd love that one."
02:14 Hunter Biden's former business partner told Congress earlier this week that Hunter tried to sell the illusion of access by having his father speak to his foreign business partners on several occasions over a decade, but said that Biden was never party to any of his son's business deals.
02:32 Patsy Widakuswara, VOA News, Washington.
02:35 Washington.
02:35 (whooshing)