WASHINGTON - A US diplomat told congressional investigators this week that he raised concerns about Hunter Biden's position with a Ukrainian energy company in 2015, only to be turned away by an aide to then-Vice President Joe Biden, a person familiar with the testimony said on Friday .
The inquiry is focused on whether Trump may have withheld US$391 million in US security aid to Ukraine earlier this year until newly elected President Volodymyr Zelenskiy opened an investigation into the Bidens and into a discredited theory that Ukraine may have meddled in the 2016 US elections. Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, without providing evidence, have accused the Bidens of corruption. Joe Biden is a leading contender for the Democratic Party's nomination to run against Republican Trump in the November 2020 election.
House and Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have introduced legislation prohibiting funding for next year's Group of Seven summit if it is held at a Trump-owned resort in southern Florida, as the US president intends. State Department diplomats, administration national security officials and a Defence Department Ukraine policy expert are due to testify to the House inquiry next week.