October 24, 2019

Did Trump Use Trade Talks to Push for Biden Investigation? The White House Won’t Say

Ron Sachs/Zuma

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While the House of Representatives continues its impeachment inquiry over Donald Trump’s attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, the White House is refusing to say whether the president used sensitive negotiations with China to push for a similar investigation of the Bidens by that country.

As the Ukraine scandal ramped up several weeks ago, Trump tweeted about Hunter Biden’s business involvement in China. Trump publicly called on China to investigate the matter—just days before the US and China were set to resume high-stakes trade talks. Trump ultimately announced that he’d reached a partial trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping. On Thursday, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro declined to tell CNN whether the Trump administration brought up the Bidens during the negotiations.

“You don’t have a right to know what happens behind closed doors in the administration,” Navarro told CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

Sciutto followed up, asking, “Did you bring up investigating the Bidens as part of the negotiations?”

“You’re asking me what happens in the White House behind closed doors,” Navarro replied.

Watch a clip of interview below:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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