Caught out over his repeated demand to the Ukraine President that Kiev investigate the son of Democratic rival Joe Biden, Donald Trump spends much of Saturday ranting on Twitter.

In a late July call to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump asked at least eight times that Ukraine authorities look at a gas company and Hunter Biden, who earned millions of dollars as a board member — even though Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said in May that there was evidence of illegal activity by either the company or the younger Biden.

TrumpWatch, Day 974: Trump Asked Ukraine President 8 Times to Investigate Biden

On August 12, a US intelligence official filed a complaint about the call and its risk to US foreign policy. The intelligence community’s Inspector General Michael Atkinson found the matter to be of “urgent concern”, triggering a legal requirement to provide the complaint to the House Intelligence Committee.

But Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire has refused to do so, bringing a subpoena from the Committee and suspicion of a cover-up.

Atkinson, who gave closed-door testimony to the Committee on Thursday, has not given details of the complaint. But sources have told The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal that there are multiple issues and identified the Trump-Zelenskiy call as one of them.

Since late 2018, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani has sought political dirt on Biden and demanded investigations of the former Vice President and of Democrats. There have been meetings in five countries, including between Giuliani and senior Ukrainian officials in June and August — after the Prosecutor General said there were no legal violations.

Giuliani, Trump, and their allies have also circulated the unsupported claim that Biden, as Barack Obama’s Vice President, arranged the dismissal of Ukraine’s top prosecutor in March 2016 to protect his son. In fact, prosecutor Viktor Shokin was dismissed by Parliament in March 2016 for corruption, a step heralded by the European Union.

Meanwhile, the White House held up $250 million in military aid to Ukraine. The funds were only released just over a week ago, after the House Intelligence Committee’s subpoena for the information in the whisteblower’s complaint.

Trump: “Enemy of the People”

With pressure building, Trump returned to the attack lines that he used against evidence of his 2016 campaign’s contacts with Russian officials and his obstruction of justice: “Fake News”, “Witch Hunt”, and “Crooked and Demented Deep State”.

Before and after playing golf at his club in Virginia, Trump tweeted lines from his propaganda outlets, such as Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton and Fox TV’s Gregg Jarrett, as they pursued the counter-attack against the reports and assailed Biden.

He concluded the day with a refrain of one of his most provocative lines, tearing down journalism to try and protect himself.

Biden responded, as he campaigned in Iowa, “This appears to be an overwhelming abuse of power. We have never seen anything like this from any president.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, also campaigning in the midwestern state, told a crowd in Des Moines: