The Times - UK (2020-10-20)

32 2GM Tuesday October 20 2020 | the times

Wo r l d

President Trump accused Joe Biden of

being part of an “organised crime

family” in a frantic blitz of swing states

as the clock winds down to the US

election with little sign of opinion polls

narrowing.

Mr Trump also decried Anthony

Fauci, a senior White House corona-

virus adviser, as a “disaster” and “idiot”

after the virologist criticised him for not

setting an example by wearing a mask

while cases rose across the country.

Mr Biden, in contrast, had no public

appearances yesterday and plans to

stay at home this week preparing for

the final TV debate on Thursday, in line

with the low-key campaign style that

has brought “sleepy Joe” jibes from the

president but has gained him a ten-

point lead in the polls.

There were more worrying signs for

Mr Trump, 74, when John Cornyn, a

normally loyal senator fighting a re-

election battle in Texas, likened the Re-

publican Party’s relationship with the

president to a difficult marriage.

Mr Trump has struggled to find an ef-

fective way of battering Mr Biden, 77, as

he did with Hillary Clinton four years

ago by describing her as “crooked”, and

has seized upon leaked emails allegedly

from Mr Biden’s son, Hunter, to attack

the Democratic campaign.

The president’s supporters at a cam-

paign rally in Nevada chanted “lock

him up” as Mr Trump accused his rival

of corruption in connection with Hunt-

er’s tangled business dealings in China

and Ukraine, where he was on the

board of Burisma, a gas company. Mr

Biden has denied even talking to his son

about his business ventures.

“They’re corrupt people... Joe Biden

is from a failed and corrupt political

class that enriched itself while draining

the economic life and soul from this

country,” Mr Trump said before repeat-

ing allegations against the Bidens first

published in the New York Post.

It reported that an email apparently

retrieved from a laptop belonging to

Hunter left in a repair shop showed a

Burisma executive thanking him for ar-

ranging a meeting with his father in

2015 while he was vice-president. The

Biden campaign said this was not on Mr

Biden’s schedule but has not denied

that a meeting took place.

Mr Trump continued: “As far as I’m

concerned the Biden family is a crimi-

nal enterprise, it really is... and you

know what, they found the laptop. They

call it the laptop from hell. Let’s see

what happens with it.”

Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump’s personal

lawyer and a former mayor of New

York, who has spent months digging for

information on the Bidens and passed

the contents of Hunter’s alleged hard

drive to the newspaper, criticised the

rest of the American media for virtually

ignoring the story.

“It’s never been investigated — what

you have in these emails is... Hunter

Biden communicating with the No 2

guy in Burisma, asking Hunter Biden to

use his influence to help Burisma,” Mr

Giuliani told Fox News. “Now what’s

Hunter Biden’s influence? None. He’s a

drug addict, just been kicked out of the

navy for drug addiction, he’s high on

cocaine about three times a week...

The influence is Joe Biden and the man

wants to meet with Joe Biden.”

Mr Giuliani, 76, promised more de-

tails from the hard drive. “It is filled with

Chinese business dealings, two or three

of which we are familiar with, honestly

two or three of which we are still ana-

lysing. Every day we find three or four

damaging emails and one or two more

situations, mostly China.”

Mr Giuliani pointed to a document

allegedly found on the hard drive that

set out the distribution of money from

a deal in 2017 with a Chinese energy

company, including a mysterious refer-

ence to “10 held by H for the big guy?”

He insisted this meant Hunter was

cutting in his father for $10 million. Mr

Biden’s campaign has denied he took

part in his son’s business and has pub-

lished his tax returns showing no pay-

ments from China.

As part of a lurid series of claims, Mr

Giuliani said: “I’ve always contended

this is a 30-year racketeering case.

Hunter’s family is the conduit for

money to Joe. He supported the family

on the bribe money coming to Joe

Biden, he paid for the houses, he paid

for the weddings, he paid for his young-

er sister’s education. Joe didn’t pay for

anything.”

The Times asked the Biden campaign

for a response but did not receive a

reply. Twitter and Facebook have

blocked users from sharing the details,

infuriating Trump loyalists.

An attempt by Eric Trump, Mr

Trump’s third son, to suggest that Mr

Biden made extra cash backfired when

he tweeted an aerial view of a $1.6 mil-

lion house saying: “The salary of a US

Senator is $174,000 per year. This is Joe

Biden’s house... seems legit.” Mr Biden

bought that house in 1974 for $185,000

and sold it in 1996 for $1.2 million.

The FBI is said to be investigating the

hard drive both for its contents and as

part of a potential Russian influence

operation involving Mr Giuliani. The

Treasury Department warned that

Andrii Derkach, a Ukraine MP who

worked with Mr Giuliani, was an

“active Russian agent” but the lawyer

Trump lashes out at ‘criminal’

United States

David Charter Washington

Contrasting campaigns

Thursday October 15

Biden holds TV town hall in

Pennsylvania; Trump holds North

Carolina rally, TV town hall in Florida

Friday October 16

Biden makes speech in Michigan;

Trump rallies in Florida and Georgia

Saturday October 17

Biden at home in Delaware;

Trump holds rallies in Michigan

and Wisconsin

Sunday October 18

Biden speech in North Carolina;

Trump rally in Nevada

Monday October 19

Biden at home for debate

preparation; Trump holds two rallies

in Arizona

Tuesday October 20

Biden at home for debate

preparation; Trump at a rally in

Pennsylvania

Wednesday October 20

Biden at home for debate

preparation; Trump at a rally in

North Carolina

Thursday October 21

Biden at home before TV debate;

Trump rally is likely but has not yet

been announced, then the evening

TV debate

Lock ’em up chants don’t

carry same weight now

Analysis

P

resident Trump wants to turn

around his fortunes in this

election but he needs to stop

fighting the last one. Yet

there is no sign that he will change

the tactics that brought him victory

in 2016 (David Charter writes).

He defeated Hillary Clinton

because voters mistrusted her and

took a chance on him. He helped to

fix her devious image by hammering

claims she illegally used a private

email server for official business,

labelling her “crooked Hillary” and

revelling in chants of “lock her up”.

This time he is trying to portray

Joe Biden as a master criminal, the

head of a mafia-style family that has

milked the system for decades. The

evidence remains almost as

mysterious as Mrs Clinton’s missing

emails and the charge is not

sticking, despite his supporters’

energetic cries of “lock him up”.

One big difference this time is the

unwillingness of the mainly liberal

American media to go along with

the ride after the Clinton email

mania. They are barely touching the

story and show little sign of

following up on the nuggets among

the dirt that bear investigation.

The giant social media platforms

are also queasy about the

revelations about Mr Biden’s son

Hunter. Their overreacting with

bans and warnings shows that they

have not found the right balance

between platform and publisher.

The biggest throwback to 2016

are the rallies themselves. They are

beloved by the president for the

enthusiasm they show to him and

the world, and garner enormous

free publicity. The first thing he

declared upon leaving hospital after

his treatment for Covid-19 was that

he wanted to do at least one rally a

day in the run-up to election day.

Yet things have changed since

2016. The rallies no longer look like
      the impressive outpourings of