Biden: Trump Is Only Doing This [Ukraine] Because He Knows I’ll ‘Beat Him Like a Drum’

Here's more on the story, from Chron:

Joe Biden hit back Saturday after being swept up in President Donald Trump's latest national controversy, providing an early look at how he'll respond to Trump's attacks.

Last week, The Washington Post reported that Trump pressured Ukraine's president to investigate a company with ties to Biden's son Hunter. Trump's request seemed designed to elicit damaging information about a political rival ahead of the 2020 election.

Biden, the top-polling 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who beats Trump in head-to-head matchups in battleground states and nationwide, said Saturday that if the president did that, it's only because "he knows I'll beat him like a drum."

Biden also challenged Trump to release a transcript of his phone call with the Ukrainian leader.

Biden found himself at the center of a massive political scandal that includes unfounded accusations spread by Trump and his allies that Biden used his influence as vice president to help his son with a business deal.

Trump and his allies reportedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into Biden's efforts in 2016 to convince Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, who at the time was also investigating a natural gas company that employed Hunter.

Biden said he knew nothing of his son's business deal and was acting on behalf of the United States, which saw the prosecutor as ineffective at stamping out corruption.

The Biden campaign sent a lengthy memo to reporters Saturday listing quotes from various news outlets, including the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, discrediting Trump's attack.

The memo seems part of a larger Biden campaign effort to get ahead of the story and keep history from repeating itself - if Trump keeps peddling the story, it could dog his campaign just as Hillary Clinton's emails dogged hers.

Biden, campaigning at the Iowa Steak Fry, wouldn't say whether Trump deserves to be impeached over his alleged conversations with Zelensky, but said the House should investigate.

"This appears to be an overwhelming abuse of power, to get on the phone with a foreign power who is looking for help from the United States and ask about me, if that's what happened, that's what appears to have happened," Biden told reporters. "Trump's doing this because he knows I will beat him like a drum and is using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try and smear."

Other Democratic presidential hopefuls also referenced the story in their Iowa remarks. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., referenced Trump's alleged conversation with the Ukrainian president when she spoke to voters Saturday. "Just in the last 48 hours, yet again, we find that he is in cahoots with a foreign government to manipulate the outcome of this election for president of the United States," Harris said.

Trump has neither confirmed or denied that he spoke to Zelensky about Biden, saying only that his conversations with the foreign leader were appropriate and calling these latest allegations another witch hunt.

News of the call came to light after an intelligence official whistleblower shared with the intelligence agency's inspector general that the official had heard the president make a promise to a foreign leader that wasn't appropriate. Subsequent reporting has found that the call was with Ukraine and related to Trump's desire to get dirt on his possible political opponent.

However, no one has seen the actual complaint filed by the whistleblower because Congress hasn't been provided a copy.

In fact, just 4 hours ago, Fox News just said it looks like this Ukraine scandal will bring down Joe Biden's entire campaign (it's over folks):

California Rep. Devin Nunes predicted on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that Joe Biden's campaign is likely coming to an end -- all because of newly resurfaced reports about his possible misconduct in Ukraine that "first originated back when Hillary Clinton was trying to make sure Biden didn’t get in the race."

The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee made the claim as The Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll showed Sen. Elizabeth Warren surging ahead of Biden as the first choice of 22 percent of the voters surveyed, while Biden was the first choice of 20 percent of the voters. Biden held a 9-point lead over Warren in the poll as recently as June.

Nunes, speaking to anchor Maria Bartiromo, said a whistleblower's allegation that President Trump had acted inappropriately during a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will ultimately backfire, and shine a light on Biden's own possible misconduct. CNN later acknowledged that the whistleblower had no first-hand knowledge of the call, and a top Ukrainian official on Saturday defended Trump's actions.

"These stories first originated back when Hillary Clinton was trying to make sure Biden didn’t get in the race," Nunes said. "So now that these have been resurrected, I don’t know who came up with the scheme -- maybe this whistleblower really is not a partisan. We want to hear from that whistleblower, but it sure looks like the scheme has backfired. And, like I said, it looks like this is the end of Biden’s campaign. I really do... his lead is basically down to zero."

Nunes also said the ever-deepening schism in the Democratic Party over whether to impeach the president -- highlighted late Saturday when New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it a major "scandal" that Democrats hadn't yet voted to impeach -- would help Trump in 2020.

"The more I think that they’re out there promoting this kind of craziness and silliness, the more that the American people are put off, and the more likely President Trump is reelected,” Nunes added.

There were parallels, Nunes said, with Democrats' ultimately debunked claims that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.

"This has all the hallmarks of the Russia hoax," Nunes said. "Something leaks out. ... and then it's the same reporters that report on it, the same reporters that reported on the Russia hoax. Then you move forward, and what happens? Then supposedly they come and testify -- and the night before they testify, the whistleblower who supposedly doesn't want anybody to know who this person is, or what information they have, well, it's spilled all over the pages of the Washington Post" the day before Congress was briefed on the matter.

"Whoever came up with this scheme -- it looks like somebody was trying to deflect what Biden did back in 2015," Nunes said. "This scheme seems to have backfired on Biden. I mean, Biden's already dropping in the polls."

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Trump had repeatedly asked Zelenskiy to investigate Hunter Biden, the former vice president's son who had a key role in a natural gas firm that was being investigated by a Ukrainian prosecutor as part of a corruption probe.

At a conference two years after he left office, Joe Biden openly bragged about successfully pressuring Ukraine to fire that prosecutor when he was vice president.

Unverified reports circulated on left-leaning media outlets claiming that Trump could have even promised something improper in exchange for Ukraine's compliance, although the Journal reported there was no "quid-pro-quo" involved.

DNI Inspector General Michael Atkinson said in a Sep. 9 letter to the House Intelligence Committee that the whistleblower complaint "appeared credible" and related to an "urgent" matter. But the DNI general counsel said days later that, after consulting with the DOJ, the matter did not meet the legal definition of an “urgent concern," and was not subject to mandatory disclosure to Congress.

“Furthermore, because the complaint involves confidential and potentially privileged communications by persons outside the Intelligence Community, the DNI lacks unilateral authority to transmit such materials to the intelligence committees,”  Jason Klitenic, the DNI general counsel, wrote.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire will testify before the House Intelligence Committee at an open hearing on Thursday.

"At that time, we expect him to obey the law and turn over the whistleblower’s full complaint to the Committee," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement Sunday afternoon. "We also expect that he will establish a path for the whistleblower to speak directly to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees as required by law."

And yes, since we're talking about the Ukraine I'm using it as an excuse to play this clip: