© AP/Alex BrandonUS President Donald Trump
Trump told a rally crowd in Des Moines, Iowa:
"Vice President Biden, you owe the people of America an apology because it turns out you are a corrupt politician.An alleged 2015 email from Burisma energy executive Vadym Pozharskyi, reported by The Post, thanks Hunter Biden for "giving an opportunity to meet your father" — appearing to debunk Biden's claim he didn't speak with his son about his "overseas business dealings."
"The Biden family treated the vice presidency as a for-profit corporation, flying around the globe, collecting millions of dollars from China and Ukraine and Russia and other countries.
"These emails show that Biden's repeated claim that he has never spoken to Hunter about his business dealings were a complete lie. He's trying to cover up a massive pay for play scandal at the heart of his vice presidency.
"Hunter was being paid for access to his vice-president father, who was specifically put in charge of Ukraine and Russia. It's a corrupt family. Joe Biden personifies the selfish and corrupt globalists who got rich and powerful at your expense."
Biden's campaign said Wednesday in a carefully worded statement there were no meetings with Pozharskyi on the former vice president's "official schedules."
Trump said the reporting indicates, however, that "Joe Biden has been blatantly lying about his involvement in his son's corrupt business dealings."
Trump slammed Twitter for locking down White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's account for sharing the article and said social networks are taking down negative stories about Biden "almost before they even go up."
Trump said there was a double standard. He said the social networks never removed disputed stories about his alleged links to Russia. "False and libelous stories, every day, false and libelous stories, and they knew they were false, too... they were never taken down by Twitter or Facebook," Trump said.
From Air Force One before the rally, Trump tweeted he wanted to repeal the companies' protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, for operating as publishers rather than neutral hosts of third-party content.
Trump told rallygoers, "Now we can see clearly that Biden is a corrupt politician who shouldn't even be allowed to run for the presidency."
Biden, who led the Obama administration Ukraine policy, said last year, "I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings," including his reported $83,000 monthly pay on Burisma's board.
Twitter said Wednesday it prevented users from tweeting or direct-messaging a link to the article because it violated a ban on distributing hacked material.
The contents of the hard drive allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden were passed on to The Post by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney to Trump, after he received it from a Delaware computer repairman.
The repairman says he legally accessed the content under an abandonment contract clause when Hunter Biden did not collect a damaged laptop within 90 days. He also turned over the laptop to the FBI.
Facebook, meanwhile, said it was taking unspecified steps to limit distribution of The Post's article pending "fact-checking."
Comment: Questions on the content of the laptop continue. Attorney Costello added clarification: