In the first U.S. presidential debate on Sept. 30 (Kyiv time), President Donald Trump twice attempted to redirect the conversation to former Vice President Joseph Biden’s son and his work for Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings. Both times, he was largely unsuccessful.
But Trump’s attempt to pivot to Ukraine was predictable.
On Sept. 27, the U.S. president made it clear during a White House briefing that he planned to use Burisma as an argument.
Read more: Trump puts Hunter Biden, Ukraine in center of US election
The younger Biden served on Burisma’s board of directors from 2014 to 2019.
Trump has repeatedly alleged that Biden forced Ukraine to fire its prosecutor general in order to close a probe into the company. He even pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden’s son and his business activity in Ukraine — something that would play a central role in Trump’s impeachment in 2019 and early 2020.
News media, including the Kyiv Post, have thoroughly debunked Trump’s allegations, but the conspiracy theory has persisted and the U.S. president attempted to deploy it in the debate.
Read more: Trump, Giuliani drag Ukraine into wild conspiracy theories
Burisma
During the presidential debate, Trump tried to ask what Hunter Biden did at Burisma. He also asked the former vice president why his son had received $3.5 million from Moscow.
He was referencing an allegation from a report published by Republican senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley on Sept. 23, which claimed that a company founded by Hunter Biden and his business partner had received the money in 2014 from Elena Baturina, wife of the late former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, for a “consultancy agreement.”
The report provided no evidence that Biden received the money himself and attributed the information about the alleged transaction to a confidential document.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer told the PolitFact fact checking site that his client did not receive $3.5 million from Baturina and was not a co-founder of the company.
President Trump attacks Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden over his dealings in Ukraine. “We want to talk about families and ethics? His family we could talk about all night,” Biden hits back. #Debates2020 https://t.co/McrHYPnMbj pic.twitter.com/9QimIss4jK
— CNBC (@CNBC) September 30, 2020
During the debate, Biden called Trump’s allegations untrue. “My son did nothing wrong at Burisma,” Biden retorted.
Burisma’s owner, former Ukrainian Minister of Ecology Mykola Zlochevsky, was under investigation for alleged money laundering at the time Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma in 2014.
Hunter’s decision surprised many. At the time, his father was vice president and was pushing anti-corruption reforms in Ukraine in the wake of the EuroMaidan Revolution, which ousted President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
According to the Republican report, two State Department officials raised concerns to Vice President Biden’s office about “the perceived potential conflict of interests” that his son’s work for Burisma created. But their concerns went unanswered, the report read.
Read more: Republican ‘bombshell’ report on Biden, Burisma spins old information
Trump also said that “Biden threatened Ukraine with $1 billion.” Journalists have proved that this claim is misleading.
Biden indeed threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to push Ukraine to fire its prosecutor general. However, he did not do this to protect Burisma or his son, but rather because the U.S government, Ukrainian reformers and Ukraine’s Western partners believed the prosecutor general was hindering anti-corruption investigations.
The Republican report didn’t find proof that Biden abused his position to protect Burisma, and by extension, his son, from a corruption investigation. “The extent to which Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine is not clear,” the report concluded.
Chaotic atmosphere
During the debate, moderator Chris Wallace, a Fox News host, interfered on two occasions to prevent Trump from going off topic to press Biden about his son’s business.
The debate, which lasted 1.5 hours, was widely perceived as chaotic. Trump repeatedly interrupted his opponent, and Biden called Trump a “clown” and told him to “shut up.” The candidates hurled personal sneers at one another and accused each other of lying.
Trump replied to Biden’s remark that he was not smart with an attack on the former vice president’s education: “You graduated either the lowest or the next to lowest in your class. Don’t ever use the word ‘smart’ with me.”
Biden also taunted Trump over his suggestion that people should inject themselves with bleach to treat COVID-19. In April, Trump proposed researching whether disinfectant injections and UV light could treat the novel coronavirus, sparking an outcry in the medical community.
In between exchanging jibes, the candidates talked about the recovery of the U.S. economy, the COVID-19 response, Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and climate change.
The U.S. presidential elections are scheduled for Nov. 3. The second of three debates between the two main candidates will take place on Oct. 7.
