Twitter has removed a video featuring the Canadian rock group Nickelback from President Donald Trump's Twitter account after the president tweeted an edited video with the caption "LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH!"
The now-removed video featured an edited clip from the music video 'Photograph' which the Canadian band released in 2005.
"I've never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings," former Vice President Joe Biden can be seen telling reporters in Iowa. The video then cuts to the Nickelback video in which singer Chad Kroeger can be seen holding a framed photograph of the former Vice President and his son, Hunter Biden, while the pair were golfing along with a caption identifying one of the men in the photo as an "Ukrainian gas exec."
However, the man in the photograph is actually that of Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner. Archer served on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings alongside Hunter Biden in 2014. According to Fox News, the photo was taken four months before Hunter joined Burisma Holdings' board.
Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that former Vice President Joe Biden used his influence while in office to help his son Hunter while still in office - something the president asked the Ukrainian president to look into on a July 25th call. That call has become central to the impeachment inquiry that was launched by the House last week. According to the complaint, Trump pressured the Ukrainian government by leveraging nearly $400 million in military aid for the country to get them to investigate Biden.
Twitter removed the tweet Wednesday evening following a report from the copyright owner.
Trump's all-caps tweet featuring the Nickelback video came after #TrumpMeltdown trended on Twitter all day following his confrontational, and sometimes bizarre, press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
The president continued his tirade against Democrats on Thursday, posting more than 20 tweets that included another demand that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Schiff (D-CA) should resign, calling the California congressman a "lying disaster."
Trump also called on China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son for his involvement in an investment fund that raised money in China.
"China should start an investigation into the Bidens," Trump told reporters on Thursday. "What happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine."
When asked if he had asked China to investigate, Trump said he hadn't, but that "it's certainly something we could start thinking about."
"The guy got kicked out of the Navy and all of the sudden he's getting billions of dollars," Trump fumed to reporters. "You know what they call that? A pay-off."
Trump was referring to accusations that Hunter Biden reportedly used a 2013 trip on Air Force Two with his father to solicit $1.5 billion from China for a private equity fund he had started. Despite the accusations leveled by the president, there has been no evidence that the former vice president and his son are involved in any corruption. According to a fact check from the Washington Post, Biden's son has never been paid for serving on the board of the private equity firm, and did not acquire an interest in the fund until 2017 once his father left office.
The tweetstorm and demand that China investigate the Bidens come as Democrats in the House ramp up impeachment proceedings against Trump following revelations from the whistleblower complaint that said Trump attempted to use nearly $400 million in military aid as leverage to pressure Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter for their business ties to that country. The Department of Justice released a summary of the call last week, which contained a record of the two world leaders discussing Biden and military aid for that country.
The whistleblower complaint made public last week accused the White House of trying to conceal the record of that conversation. In the complaint, the whistleblower wrote they believed Trump had been using "the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" for the upcoming 2020 election.
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