Trump defense team lays out their case against the Bidens
Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, member of President Trump's impeachment team, weighs in and reacts to the latest on the fight over witnesses.
New York. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a member of President Trump's impeachment legal team, said Tuesday that the defense in the Senate trial made the case for why Trump wanted an investigation into corruption in Ukraine. The president, Zeldin said, "had a right" to take issue with former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter's business dealings in the country, calling it "a dirty money Ukraine scheme.”
Zeldin made the statement on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday reacting to attorney Pam Bondi taking the fight on Monday directly to Hunter Biden -- underscoring, again and again, how even media outlets with a left-wing "bias" questioned the younger Biden's lucrative service on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings while his father oversaw Ukraine policy as vice president.
President Trump wanted the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens in the fateful phone call that ultimately resulted in his impeachment by the House of Representatives because Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma Holdings while his father was vice president.
“Hunter Biden’s decision to join Barisma raised flags almost immediately,” Bondi said on Monday.
DERSHOWITZ CALLS OUT HOUSE DEMS IN TRUMP'S SENATE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL AFTER BOLTON SHOCK WAVES
During the Senate impeachment trial on Monday Trump defense team member Eric Herschmann referenced Hunter Biden’s connection to Burisma Holdings as well, saying, “In January of 2018, as you heard former Vice President Biden brag that he had pressured the Ukrainians, threatened them, indeed coerced them into firing the state prosecutor who was reportedly investigating the very company that paid millions of dollars to his son.”
Reacting to Trump’s legal team’s performance on Monday, Zeldin said, “Pam Bondi did a great job, Eric Herschmann [did too] laying out the facts.
“The House impeachment managers, the Democrats, many in the media they want to say it's just a debunked conspiracy theory what was laid out so eloquently first by Pam Bondi and I would challenge these same people, the House impeachment managers and the Democrats in Congress and the mainstream media to tell us what did Pam Bondi say that wasn't true?” Zeldin asked on Tuesday. “I mean she was using their own words.
“And the fact is that you have a corrupt Ukrainian gas company run by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch hiring the son of the vice president for at least $50,000 a month with no energy experience, no Ukraine experience,” he continued.
Zeldin then said that President Trump “had a right to have a problem with” what he called “a dirty money Ukraine scheme,” adding that Burisma Holdings and the Bidens “shouldn't be immune from scrutiny just because Joe Biden is running for president.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“If it's not illegal then it should be,” Zeldin continued.
Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox