Biden Backtracks, Now Clarifies He Would Comply With a Legal Subpoena

Here's more, from Fox News:

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Friday that he would not comply with a subpoena to testify in the Senate impeachment trial against President Trump, should one be issued to him.

Any testimony from the 2020 Democratic contender for the White House before the Senate would draw attention away from Trump's alleged wrongdoing and would effectively let the president off the hook, Biden claimed in an interview with the editorial board of the De Moines Register in Iowa.

"What are you going to cover?” Biden said to Register Executive Editor Carol Hunter in response to a question about the possibility of his participation in the trial. “You guys are going to cover for three weeks anything that I said. And (Trump’s) going to get away."

"You guys buy into it all the time. Not a joke …" he added. "Think what it’s about. It's all about what he does all the time, his entire career. Take the focus off. This guy violated the Constitution. He said it in the driveway of the White House. He acknowledged he asked for help.”

The Democrat-controlled House impeached Trump earlier this month for "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress" related to his dealings with Ukraine. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has yet to deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

Democrats have accused Trump of planning to withhold military aid from Ukraine until he could secure the promise of a public announcement from the country that it would investigate the business dealings there of Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Trump has denied that his July phone conversation with Ukraine's president involved any such quid pro quo.

Trump and the Republicans, meanwhile, have asserted that Biden and his son have largely escaped scrutiny for their past involvement in Ukraine, and have accused the American media of downplaying the Bidens' story.

Biden rejected that argument during a public appearance last weekend.

"No one’s taken as much heat and as many lies thrown at them as I have," Biden said during a campaign stop in Ottumwa on Dec. 20, "but again, this is not about me. It’s not about my family. It’s about the nation. And we have to reach out and unify this country."

Breitbart had more:

Former Vice President Joe Biden attempted Saturday to clarify remarks made the day before in which he said he would disobey a subpoena from the Senate if called to testify in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

Biden told the Des Moines Register that he would reject a subpoena, which led to criticism that he would be committing the same “obstruction of Congress” that Trump is accused of in the second article of impeachment.

On Saturday, he tweeted that he would obey a legal subpoena, implying that would not apply here: “I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial.”

Contrary to his assertions, Biden’s testimony would be relevant to Trump’s defense. The articles of impeachment claim that President Trump asked Ukraine to investigate Biden’s past conflict of interest — ordering the firing of a prosecutor while his son, Hunter, was on the board of Burisma, one of Ukraine’s most corrupt companies — “in pursuit of personal political benefit.”

The House Judiciary Committee report accompanying the articles claimed there was no “legitimate national security or foreign policy interest” in investigating the Bidens, Burisma, or claims that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

But numerous witnesses during the impeachment inquiry admitted that Biden’s conflict of interest was a problem — one the Obama administration did nothing to resolve and may even have tried to conceal. Biden’s testimony would confirm the legitimate public interest in Trump’s query.

It is not clear Biden will be called, anyway. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has indicated that he would prefer to dismiss the impeachment on constitutional grounds. The fact that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has tried to withhold the articles from delivery — though she arguably has no constitutional authority to stop a Senate trial — has made the prospect of dismissal more likely. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has said he would prefer to call the Bidens as witnesses in an oversight role, but not during an impeachment trial. The president and Republicans were effectively blocked from calling witnesses in the House.

NATIONAL POLL:  Do you want to see Joe Biden testify in a Senate impeachment trial?