We’re finally seeing Republicans like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy start to use the “I” word and talk about a possible impeachment inquiry, even though he’s still not fully going there, but demanding the Biden team cooperate and be transparent.
As we reported, he said, “This is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed.” He made it clear saying he wasn’t calling for impeachment, but saying that the information-gathering process is increasingly pointing in the direction of a possible impeachment inquiry.
If [Biden officials] do not provide us with the information we need” and don’t stop preventing their agencies from cooperating with Congress so they can fulfill their Constitutional oversight responsibilities, McCarthy stated, then the next step perhaps would be to move to an impeachment inquiry scenario that would give Congress full power to investigate.
I think it’s fair to say that most on the right probably believe that Biden hit that point for an inquiry a long time ago. Yes, we should be different from the Democrats who used impeachment as a political tool to try to take out their political rival and cheapened the process. They didn’t care about the Constitution or the corrosive effect such moves would have — all they cared about was their power.
Yet, we also shouldn’t be fearful of stepping up to take it on when justice and the evidence demand it, as it does here. Because that’s also important to protect the rule of law. We’ve seen for years now the two-tier system of justice and that is problematic for the stability of the Republic. People need and have a right to expect equal application of the law.
George Washington University law school professor Jonathan Turley has now added his name to the list of the folks that Congress is now obligated to launch an impeachment inquiry, given Biden “clearly lied” about his involvement in the Biden family foreign business dealings scandal. First, Turley discussed the question of pardoning Hunter and then he talked about what would have happened normally if a defendant backed out of a plea deal, as Hunter Biden did — that he’d be hit with maximum jail time. They spoke about that blanket immunity part of the agreement that you can see here. The impeachment part starts at about 4:20.
Turley said that all these questions “cannot go unanswered.”
We often talk about the powers of Congress and not its obligations. What is the House supposed to do? You know, you have a president who has clearly lied, lied for years, lied to the American people, lied through his representatives at the White House during his presidency. He obviously did know about these deals. He had involvement with some of these meetings. There was money that went to China.
And then you’ve got IRS agents saying that the fix was in, that this case was actively managed to avoid serious charges for the president’s son. You have millions of dollars moving through a labyrinth of accounts. You have a trusted source saying that there was a bribery allegation. The crime that is the second one mentioned in the impeachment clause.
So what are you supposed to do about that? And the answer is you have to investigate. And an impeachment inquiry gives the House that ability. It doesn’t mean they’re going to impeach. It means they’re taking the responsibility seriously no matter what the administration may want out of this. The one thing the House cannot allow is for these questions to go unanswered.
That’s the thing here — if Biden gets special treatment or is not pursued, that greatly harms our system.
Turley points out that if Devon Archer testifies to Joe’s connections to the foreign business deals on Monday then the question becomes not just whether he lied, but why he’s lied about the alleged influence peddling. Biden has to worry about what Archer will say because he certainly knows a lot about all the deals.
It’s important to lay this all out before the American people particularly and that’s another thing that the inquiry would do.
It’s time.
