- Trump, in an interview with
John Solomon , sought Vladimir Putin's help in smearing Hunter Biden. - Trump is exploiting
disinformation about Biden andUkraine long pushed by his allies andRussia .
In an interview with the conservative journalist John Solomon on Tuesday on Solomon's streaming service, Real America's Voice, Trump addressed the war in Ukraine and called on the Russian president to provide information about Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, who is the target of a renewed GOP and Russian propaganda campaign.
In seeking to exploit the war in Ukraine to attack the Bidens, Trump is stirring a complex brew of rumors and conspiracy theories about the Bidens that he and his allies have been promoting for years.
And among its chief architects was Solomon, Trump's host on Tuesday.
In the early years of Trump's presidency, Solomon produced a series of columns for The Hill alleging dubious business dealing by Hunter Biden in Ukraine and corruption by his father, which were never proven.
The columns were widely cited in conservative media, with his background at mainstream outlets like The Associated Press apparently lending them credibility. Solomon was a frequent guest on Sean Hannity's Fox News show.
They formed part of the web of conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated claims that led to Trump's first impeachment in 2019, after he threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine's newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, unless Zelenskyy helped in the bid to smear the Bidens.
Then in February 2020, Solomon's credibility took a major hit when The Hill in an internal review of his 14 articles about Ukraine and the Bidens found that he had omitted important details.
The publication found that Solomon had not disclosed that key sources for his articles were Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani; the pro-Trump attorneys Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova; and other discredited Ukrainian sources.
All three attorneys played key roles in propagating the narrative regarding the Bidens and Ukraine, distributing conspiracy theories and disinformation about the Bidens seemingly meant to help Trump's reelection campaign.
Fox News, with whom Solomon was working as a commentator, severed ties with him later that year. An internal memo obtained by The Daily Beast warned that he had promoted "disinformation" about Ukraine.
But with Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the old smears are being put to renewed use, and not just by Trump.
Russia has sought to tie Hunter Biden and other Republican hate figures to its disinformation campaign about secret US biolabs in Ukraine.
Experts have told Insider that the campaign is an attempt to secure support from US conservatives for its invasion of Ukraine.