Trump's targeting of the Bidens could backfire big time — here's why

On Monday, writing for Mother Jones, David Corn and Russ Choma outlined how President Donald Trump's attempt to close out the campaign by sowing suspicion about Hunter Biden could blow up in his face.

"It seems that Donald Trump’s closing message for his reelection campaign during a time of pandemic and economic crisis is this: Hunter Biden," they wrote. "In recent days, he has jumped on a misleading New York Post story about the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son—an allegation promoted by Rudy Giuliani and linked to a Russian disinformation operation—and slammed the Bidens as a 'corrupt family,' claiming 'Joe Biden personifies the selfish and corrupt globalists.'"

"Stone, meet glass house," they wrote. "For years, Trump and his family—including his three adult children, Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka—have been implicated in questionable endeavors that raise concerns regarding corruption and possible criminal conduct ... Moreover, Trump has not explained many of his clan’s business actions that seem sketchy, shady, or worse."

A few recent bombshell reports aside, reporters have frequently hit dead ends trying to investigate the Trump family's shady business deals — and Trump is practically inviting them to take a crack at several of them.

Some of the issues that are fair game, wrote Corn and Choma, are the president's remaining tax secrets; his family's overseas deals including Ivanka's trademarks in China; Trump's dealings in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan; what appears to be a money-laundering pattern at his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland; the apparent emoluments violations through the D.C. Trump hotel and the Mar-a-Lago country club; the state of Trump's hundreds of millions in personally-guaranteed loans; and Jared Kushner's conflicts of interest and lack of financial disclosures.

"If Trump is going to insist that Joe Biden release information about his son’s business activity, then it’s only fair that Trump do the same about his and his family’s own wheeling-and-dealing," they wrote.

You can read more here.