https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/12/why-a-formal-impeachment-inquiry-is-now-necessary/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=hero&utm_content=related&utm_term=second
To make the serious allegations against the Bidens penetrate the public consciousness, Republicans must stage their own show.
Since the prospect was first raised, I have been of the view that the Republican Party would be better off moving too slowly than too fast in its inquiry into the Biden family’s peculiar business dealings. James Comer and Chuck Grassley have done sober and sedulous work over the past couple of years, and I have worried that, if they were to run out over their skis, they would fatally undermine their own efforts. As National Review’s editors correctly observed this week, impeachment is ultimately a political question, not a legal question, and it is thus subject to the slings and arrows of demagoguery and the vicissitudes of public opinion. Hitherto, my advice to the GOP has been to keep up the good work and wait for the right moment. An inquiry was already ongoing. What need could there be to formalize it?
I have changed my mind. Naturally, I still consider it imperative for the Republicans to remain diligent and shrewd and for all involved to stick assiduously to the facts. But, having watched the brazen manner in which both the White House and the press have continued to stonewall, I have come to the conclusion that a more ceremonial investigation is, in fact, necessary. In theory, the media ought to be keenly interested in informing the country of where things stand. In practice, its leading lights have effectively been working for the president. If the GOP is to have any chance of conveying what it has found thus far — and, despite the foot-stamping and gaslighting, what it has found thus far is extremely interesting — it will be obliged to do so under its own steam. We are a long, long way away from Woodward and Bernstein. To break through, the Republicans will need to stage their own show.
Thus far, the White House’s response has been to deny everything in the hope that the questions will go away. And, thus far, that has worked. Why? Certainly, it is not because President Biden’s denials have been proven reliable. Far from it! Asked recently whether he had done anything wrong, Biden was categorical: “I did not,” he replied. “It’s just a bunch of lies.” Perhaps so. But one cannot help but notice that this is exactly how President Biden has spoken about all of the other allegations, too. “I have never talked with my son or my brother, or anyone else in the distant family about their business interests, period,” Biden said in 2019. Actually, he had. “My son has not made money, in terms of thing about, what are you talking about — China,” Biden insisted in 2020. The records show that his son’s firm made $11 million there. “That’s not true,” Biden said this year, when asked whether “Hunter Biden’s business associates sent over $1 million to three of your family members.” As it happened, it was. Now, President Biden is claiming that he was not financially involved with his son’s business — or, as CNN is putting it, that that he was not “improperly” involved with his son’s business. This may turn out to be true — we’ll see. Given how the rest of his denials have panned out, however, it ought at least to be treated with skepticism.