Kamala Harris: I Won’t Get ‘Duped’ into Talking About Biden and Ukraine, ‘Leave Joe Biden Alone’

Democratic presidential candidates former Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Sen. Kamala
AP Photo/David J. Phillip

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) on Monday told reporters that she will not get “duped” into talking about Joe Biden’s (D) role in the so-called Ukraine “scandal,” urging reporters to “leave Joe Biden alone.”

The floundering presidential candidate told reporters that she will not get “duped” into discussing the former vice president’s role in the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma Holdings, where Hunter Biden was making tens of thousands of dollars per month.

“I’ve said many times that on this issue of Ukraine, leave Joe Biden alone,” Harris said, arguing that Democrats cannot go down that road because it is all part of the “trap” President Trump has set.

Harris went on:

Because I really do believe to go down that road is to fall into the trap that the president has laid, which is to manipulate the power of the president and the relationships that we have with allies like Ukraine in a way that has been about personal and political benefit.

“So I’m not going to get duped into having that conversation,” she continued. “Let’s leave Joe Biden alone”:

Harris has been a vocal proponent for Trump’s impeachment and told MSNBC’s Live on Monday that she would vote to convict Trump in the Senate if the impeachment inquiry reaches that point.

“Yes. Based on everything I’ve seen,” Harris said, touting her past role as a prosecutor:

I’m a former prosecutor. And let me just tell you, as far as I’m concerned, the subject, the main subject of the impeachment which is the issue of yet again Donald Trump eliciting help from a foreign government to interfere with the election of our president of the United States, in this case, we’ve basically got a confession.

We’ve got a display of conscious consciousness of guilt in an attempt to cover-up. I don’t know how much more we need but apparently a second whistle-blower, and we’re going to get more. Based on everything we know, including an admission by this president, I don’t know that it leads in any other direction except to vote yes. Which is what I believe I will do based on everything I know.

Despite Harris’s claim, the transcript of the call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky showed no such quid pro quo, as Trump’s political foes suggest. It was Biden who, as former vice president, threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to the Ukraine unless officials fired the top prosecutor investigating Burisma Holdings.

“I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours,” Biden said during an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations in January 2018.

“I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired,” Biden bragged. “And they put in place someone who was solid at the time”:

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