Joe Biden on Donald Trump hits: ‘I don’t want to get down in the mud’

WASHINGTON: Joe Biden on Tuesday night deflected questions about President Donald Trump’s allegations of improper behaviour during the Obama administration and other conspiracy theories pushed by his top allies, saying, I don’t want to get down in the mud with these guys.nnSpeaking at a Yahoo News virtual town hall, Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said Trump is trying to distract voters from his inadequate response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 90,000 Americans.nnTrump has said the virus will disappear like a miracle.nnBroadly dubbing his allegations Obamagate, Trump has pointed to the legal case of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, suggesting that the unmasking of Flynn’s name as part of legal US surveillance of foreign targets was criminal and motivated by partisan politics.nnThere is no evidence of that, and Trump’s accusations misrepresent the facts of the case.nnUnmasking of people in surveillance reports is a routine, legal activity in government the Trump administration made 10,012 such requests in 2019.nnBut they don’t often become public, and in the Flynn case, Trump supporters point to it as evidence that Obama loyalists were out to undermine Trump from the start.nnThe president himself has called it the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA.nnThis is his pattern. Diversion, diversion, diversion, diversion,” Biden said Tuesday.nn”The greatest crime? I mean, my Lord. Trump’s cries of scandal come as the president and many top Republicans have used increasingly harsh rhetoric against Biden hoping to foment doubt in voters’ minds as election season beings to heat up.nnOn Wednesday, a Senate committee led by Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson will vote on whether to issue a subpoena as part of an investigation into Biden’s son Hunter and his work for a Ukrainian natural gas company that grew out of Trump’s impeachment earlier this year.nnOver the weekend, Trump’s two adult sons appeared to spread baseless, online conspiracy theories suggesting other criminal activity by Biden.nnAsked about that Tuesday, Biden called online posts about the matter sick.” People know me. The good news is the bad news.nnThey know me. They know my faults, they know my talents, Biden said.nnPointing to his decades in the Senate and eight years as vice president, he continued, “It’s hard to lay on me some of the things that are just totally out of sync with anything in my whole life that anyone has ever said about me.”nnAlso Tuesday, Biden was asked about Trump’s firing of Steve Linick as the State Department’s inspector general.nnSome Republicans have defended the move, arguing that it was within the president’s rights, but Biden and other Democrats say it is part of a larger White House effort to undermine government oversight.nnBiden promised not to fire any inspector general should he be elected, saying those positions were designed to make government honest.nnSource: AP