White House brings on new press deputy who took on Donald Trump’s charges of Joe and Hunter Biden ‘corruption’ in Ukraine in a beer-sipping video where he branded the claims ‘bull****’
- Andrew Bates is joining Biden’s White House press team as a deputy press secretary
- Press Secretary Jen Psaki hailed him as ‘one of the smartest, most committed and most strategic media professionals in the business’
- He fielded tough inquiries about Hunter Biden during the campaign
- He cut a 4-minute video from a bar the blast ‘corruption’ attacks on the Bidens involving Ukraine
- He swigged from a beer as he went after Republicans from the watering hole
- He ran the ‘Knives and Arsenic Room’ of the Biden campaign
- Move comes as Biden White House has been facing tough questions on immigration with growing foreign policy challenges
The White House is briefing up its press team by bringing in a new deputy who fielded charged inquiries about Hunter Biden and Ukraine during the presidential campaign – and who brawled with Republicans in a Youtube video shot inside a bar.
Andrew Bates served as research director for the Biden campaign, where he helmed what a colleague jokingly labeled the ‘Knives and Arsenic Room’ during the first Trump impeachment.
As part of his role, Bates fielded challenging media inquiries during the campaign – including a narrative pushed by President Donald Trump and his allies that Biden was involved in ‘corruption’ in Ukraine, based on his Obama administration push to fire the top Ukrainian prosecutor.
Andrew Bates, who ran research for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign and took on corruption attacks about Ukreain, is joining the White House press office as a deputy
He also fended off claims about Hunter Biden, who came under scrutiny for getting a lucrative position serving on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
In one bit of pushback, Bates took to a bar in an effort to take down the claims, occasionally swigging from a beer while he made his points.
”Andrew Bates addresses Hunter Biden Ukraine charges over a beer,’ the video was headlined.
‘So there was this guy Viktol Shoken,’ Bates began. ‘He was the prosecutor general of Ukraine, which is like the attorneyg general,’ he explained.
Bates responded to attacks by President Donald Trump charging the Bidens with ‘corruption’
His role as research director left him fielding questions about Biden’s son, Hunter
Bates swigged from a beer while discussing the complicated story, which was the subject of an investigation by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki lauded Bates on Twitter Wednesday
He said Shokin became the ’embodiment’ of corruption there, and defended Biden’s efforts to force him out of office, threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid as leverage.
With the bar’s TVs playing soccer games in the background, Bates described how activists and other western governments also wanted Shokin out.
He then took on Donald Trump’s claim that Biden pushed out Shokin because he was investigating Burisma.
‘The clinical term for that is horse****,’ he said, going on to note that the Burisma probe had ‘fallen dormant’ at the time.
When former Hunter Biden business partner Anthony Bobulinski emerged before the last presidential debate in Nashville to claim Hunter confided in his father about investing in a massive Chinese energy firm, Bates hit back in a statement knocking the story.
‘Joe Biden has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any overseas business whatsoever. He has never held stock in any such business arrangements nor has any family member or any other person ever held stock for him,’ he said.
A declassified Director of National Intelligence report assessed the Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw ‘influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating socio-political divisions in the U.S’
Bates ran a room at Biden campaign headquarters that a colleague joking said should be called the ‘Knives and Arsenic Room,’ even printing out a sign,’ Fox News reported.
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