Scale of Alleged Biden Foreign Influence Peddling Unprecedented in History of D.C. Corruption, Impeachment Witness Testifies Ryan Mills
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, testifying during the first House impeachment inquiry hearing into President Joe Biden, said Thursday that while Washington, D.C., is “awash” with influence peddling, the “size and complexity” of the allegations against Biden and his family are unprecedented.
House leaders, he said, have a “duty” to determine if the president was involved in a pay-to-play scheme.
Turley was one of four witnesses — three Republicans and one Democrat — who testified during the hearing. None of the people who testified were direct fact witnesses to any crimes or to an alleged Biden-family scheme.
Republicans claim that there is a mountain of evidence that Biden’s family members, including his son Hunter and brother James, enriched themselves by selling the “Biden brand,” access to Joe Biden when he was vice president and a candidate for president, to foreigners.
Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio called it a “tale as old as time” and the “oldest story in the world.”
Turley, who previously testified in the impeachments of presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, said that comments by Hunter Biden and the “labyrinth of accounts and companies” used by the president’s family members to transfer money make the inquiry credible.
“The question is, did the president know? Did he encourage this type of corruption?” Turley said during questioning by Representative Glenn Grothman (R., Wis.). “You have to begin with the recognition that what Hunter Biden and his associates were doing was corrupt.”
Grothman asked Turley whether there was any precedent for the scale of foreign influence peddling Biden is alleged to have participated in.
“Influence peddling is the favorite form of corruption in Washington, D.C., and this city is awash in it,” Turley responded. “But have I seen anything of this size and complexity? No.”
Grothman also asked if the House is “obligated to have this inquiry.”
“I believe it is your duty to determine if the president is involved in what is a known form of corruption,” Turley said. “I believe many people have accepted this was influence peddling in its rawest form.”
Turley also said that he doesn’t believe that the evidence that exists now supports impeaching Joe Biden, but that the House investigation has uncovered enough to justify the inquiry to address unanswered questions. “The only way you’ll be able to get that information is to follow this evidence,” he said. “What I suggest is you do so without any prejudice, you do so without any assumptions. In fact, I hope that the president will be able to show that there is no such nexis [between his family’s schemes and him]. But you won’t get those answers until you ask these questions.”
Republicans used the hearing to display questionable text message between Hunter and Jim Biden, and complicated organization charts of Biden-family businesses.
Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant and a Republican witness, said the charts show “a very complicated structure of entities that are interrelated and would give me concern.”
Democrats pushed back, claiming there is no evidence that the president knew about or benefited from the schemes involving his family members. They claimed that it was a “fake” inquiry, designed to distract the public from the increasingly likely government shutdown this weekend. Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said Republicans — “like flying monkeys on a mission for the Wicked Witch of the West”— launched the inquiry to appease former president Donald Trump, who wants to shut down the government in an effort to defund the criminal probes into him.
“If Republicans has a smoking gun, or even a dripping water pistol, they would be presenting it today,” Raskin said.
Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill and the Democratic witness, said the biggest problem with the Republican case so far is “the dots are not connected” between Hunter Biden’s schemes and the president.
He claimed that the Republican case is akin to Hunter Biden being arrested for speeding, and police going after Joe Biden.
“I don’t think that’s how the law should work,” he said. “I don’t think that’s how impeachment should work.”
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