After weeks of conducting hearings in private, the House impeachment inquiry is going public this week. But if the Democrats stage-managing this affair have their way, there will be one element of their presidential-misconduct allegations that won’t be part of the show: Hunter Biden.
Democrats believe that the vice-presidential son’s Ukraine shenanigans are irrelevant to impeachment. They want the hearings to be entirely focused on their accusation that President Trump threatened to withhold American military aid to force Kiev to investigate a political rival.
They say that questions about what Hunter did or didn’t do, and what his father knew and when he knew it, are just a conspiracy theory floated by Trump and his followers to confuse the American people.
But even if you buy the Democrats’ premise that Trump’s request was not merely inappropriate but illegal and a crime so terrible that it justifies impeachment, this makes no sense.
How can the House examine this matter without probing Trump’s motivation for requesting that Ukraine investigate the Bidens?
Biden’s younger and wayward son was being paid tens of thousands of dollars a month to be on the board of a Ukrainian energy company — despite having exactly zero qualifications for the post other than his last name. It is also a matter of record that President Barack Obama tasked Joe Biden with managing US relations with Ukraine at the time. We also know that “Ukraine’s energy sector — the country’s crucial geopolitical engine — was a central point of contention between the Obama administration and Kiev,” as The New York Times reported last week.
So if Trump — rightly or wrongly — believed there was something fishy about this and wanted Ukraine to dig into it, why wouldn’t Americans want to hear about it?
So what should the House ask Hunter and Joe Biden?
Hunter needs to be asked how and why he was hired by Burisma and what he knew about the firm’s possible links to Russia or Kremlin efforts to pressure the Kiev government.
Both Bidens need to tell us what they knew about each other’s Ukraine work, and they have to ready for skeptical questions about their assurances that they kept silent about it to each other.
Joe Biden needs to explain why his threats to withhold aid to Ukraine, about which he publicly boasted, were legitimate, while Trump’s were somehow an impeachable offense. He should also be asked what should be done to stop others from behaving as corruptly as his son did.
Any president has the right to ask questions about American involvement in corrupt acts abroad. That’s true — even if Joe Biden was innocent of wrongdoing and if Hunter is only guilty of being a lame grifter.
Asking Biden about Obama’s use of aid as leverage to get its way in Ukraine puts Trump’s actions into context. Nor is it irrelevant to point out that Obama’s assistance fell far short of what Kiev needed to defend its territory against Moscow’s aggression. It matters that it was only after Trump took office that lethal military supplies began to flow from Washington to Kiev.
You also don’t have to approve of Trump to understand that American administrations use aid to pressure foreign countries all the time and do so for a variety of reasons, not all of which are high-minded.
Merely asking these questions undermines the entire notion that Trump has committed an impeachable offense.
The Biden’s linkage to Ukrainian corruption is the key to defeating impeachment. Trump had legitimate reason to ask Ukraine to look into the corruption, Biden’s candidacy be damned. This is why Schiff worked so hard to prohibit any questions or witnesses in that direction. Left wing corruption throughout.
If Biden is going to testify under oath, Rudy Guiliani should, too. There’s no need for him to wait for his criminal indictment in federal court. He could bring the other 12 who ignored House subpoenas to testify along with him.
@Greg: Giuliani didn’t extort anyone.
Too late its all buttoned up they wrote the articles, gathered every fact all the witnesses they require to send this to the Senate. Just need that majority vote and with the mountains of evidence and rock solid witnesses, its perfect.
Dont need the WB, Biden or anything else.
Yep. Senate republicans only need to sign on the dotted line to be fully committed to going down with the ship if the ship goes down. First they had better think carefully about how many torpedoes may be in the water. Giuliani could still be the hand grenade that’s going to blow them all up, even after they get Trump through the impeachment trial.
The other possibility is that they get their wish, Trump gets off, and then wins reelection by employing whatever devious means he can get away with. In which case they’ll be held accountable for whatever comes of telling him that he really can shoot a man on Fifth Avenue without consequence, and turning him loose for another four years to do whatever the hell he wants.
@Greg: Rudy is a totally seperate thing to the impeachment you really dont realize how bad Schiff and Nadler screwed the impeachment circus up do you? Hint they waterproofed it with wax and petrol bwahahahaha
@kitt: Yes, he DOES realize how they not only embarrassed themselves, but the entire Democrat party, the House, Congress and the US government. They killed support for impeachment (support based on vaporous, vaguely defined accusations and propaganda) by showing… PROVING they have nothing but rumor and opinion to base all their accusations on. So, Schumer wants the chance to put on a better show in the Senate, continue to control all the narrative, witnesses and “evidence”, inventing what they need and suppressing what hurts their case (the Obama FISA formula).
Like Trump, Giuliani is a guy that is untouched by the corruption in Ukraine, where taxpayer money went in and graft and bribes came out. Perhaps some Republicans are incriminated in the corruption as well and don’t want ALL the evidence to come forth, but Trump and Giuliani have nothing to fear from facts coming forward. THAT’S what Schumer, another Epstein cohort, fears.
Yes, a HOUSE Impeachment Inquiry should have questioned Hunter (and Joe) Biden.
But it didn’t.
More proof it was a sham.
Plato Republic, the work, uses a Socratic style of questioning titled elenchus-from the Greek verb elengchein
to examine or refute. the sham house impeachment scam laced this format of the examination. Book 9, in the above-listed work, defines the corruption of inquiry of an individual 400 BCE., so noting is really new.
Seems like questioning Hunter would be such a waste of time considering McConnell has already said to the effect that a quick strike of the gavel at the pleasure of the White House is all he’s going to allow.
@Ronald J. Ward: Any evidence obtained will be turned over to the correct authorities. The House majority did not think he was a suitable witness.
@Ronald J. Ward: What HAS the White House actually said they want to happen in the Senate hearing? Greg lacks the courage to answer the question to the same false assertion you just made; are YOU man enough to provide the honest answer?
@kitt:
Moscow Mitch, Graham. Paul, et al have said they would exonerate Trump no matter what. Moscow Mitch said, in so many words, whatever results of the Senate trail that Trump wants is what he’ll get. A few months ago, Moscow Mitch even openly stated there was no scenario that the GOP could convict Trump.
So per Moscow Mitch and most of his corporately owned GOP puppets, Putin’s bitch (Trump) walks. Period.
So why are we bothering with Hunter? Some GOP feel good self-exoneration to appease their consciences of being sold out?
@Ronald J. Ward: Not his fault Pencil neck and Jerry the fat screwed it up.
Its in the constitution The House Impeachs the Senate trys it.
The case must be made, all the evidence presented.
Its like asking the jury or judge to investigate a case.
I know this is beyond your basic liberal, vagina costume wearing, no testosterone being, so go clean the cat box, see if you can slip away and get your keeper a Christmas gift she wont return after showing it to all her catlady pals as the laugh at you.
@kitt:
I understand it’s the the Constitutional obligation for the Senate to try an impeached president.
I simply don’t agree that a trial is a pre-arranged agreement to deny any witnesses or testimony, slam the gavel, and say “case closed”.
Even as unhinged of a trump bowel dweller the lot here is, I would think that you would at least expect them to put on a better show-particularly in light of the hypocrisy in their dealings with Bill Clinton as well as their actions towards the next Democratic president down the road. And this would be even more so if as you so adamantly want to believe, that trump is indeed innocent.
@kitt: SOME people are too ignorant to understand that NO ONE is going to be convicted on the weak crap the Democrats have rolled out. Anyone with eyes connected to a brain can see that there will be no conviction of Trump for Biden’s extortion. It is also no surprise that the same idiots that cheered Schiff’s display of how power corrupts the weak minded now think McConnell and the Senate Republicans should turn power over to Schumer the liar, Epstein’s buddy. Democrats have gotten used to getting their way or throwing a tantrum. Well, that don’t work no more.
@Ronald J. Ward: It was Schiff that said his circus was like a grand jury, read up on what that is and how it works, It is impossible to have a speak to an ignoramus liberal who only has one line of thought.The one line his women allow him, lest he talk beyond her ignorance and mansplain or use toxic masculinity to victimize her.
You are now dismissed go sit where ever you are allowed in your pathetic existence.
@Deplorable Me: Its unconstitutional unless they are ready to make an amendment where the Senate is the prosecutor and the court.
Liberals havent a clue about the fail-safes the founders put there, nor the logic and reasoning behind them.
Vive la république, we have a republic if we can keep it.
No, really. You can’t make this crap up!
Who better to establish the rules for a crooked impeachment than an impeached crooked ex-judge?
Impeached and kicked out of office for perjury and bribery, Democrats elected him to office again. Now he sets rules for impeachment, even though he even now has sexual harassment charges hanging over his head. Democrats. ONLY Democrats. This is who people like AJ and Greg want making the rules. NO credibility, NO character, NO honor.
@Ronald J. Ward:
Then you don’t agree with the entire premise of the impeachment and know it’s miscarriage of justice.
Parsing words and repeating a lie over and over do not an impeachment make.
If that were so, we’d go back and impeach any president…for any of a host of things they said, in any given week.
This is all self-psychological hysteria, making sure to frame Trump presidency as non legitimate because he’s actually succeeding where many failed, namely the messiah Barack Obama and his failed utopia.
We live in a Constitutional Republic. It’s give and take with the other citizens. You and your party are not the majority, and you don’t get to own the country for the rest of time.
This is about your party taking power and keeping it, and good and free citizens will not let that stand. How far you willing to go for your beliefs, little dog?
I’m willing to keep America a free and citizen-governed republic. Just try to change that.
@Nathan Blue: My father use to refer to the importance of what Ron and greggie think like this. “If what they think was gun powder, they would not have enough to blow their nose”. Having thought and basing subsequent statements on those thought instead of facts doesn’t make their thoughts valid. Their thought are still just invalidated thoughts. That makes their statements based upon those invalid thoughts trash. If the Dims had followed prior set protocol for conducting an impeachment procedures, they would have likely dropped the proceedings a long time ago. If they had followed set protocol, such as identifying the crime, voting to impeach and then making the case, they would have had the court blessing to subpoena members of the executive branch. Instead, they tried to quickly put together a committee investigation to find a crime. They then kept changing the potential crime they were looking to find as they presented hearsay testimony of only selected witnesses. The potential crime kept changing as the testimony could not support the commission of a crime. In their hurry to impeach at any cost, the Dims invented a new hurried up process that didn’t allow time to include the third branch of government to sanctify their process or not. As a result, the dims turned over a case to the Senate lacking a crime meeting anything close to an impeachable offence. They expected the Senate to waste their time and the people’s money prosecuting and judging a non-offence. The whole incident enacted by the left reveals their ignorance of proper procedures for impeachment process, their ignorance of the Constitution, their philosophy of “any means to an end”, their extreme hate of the president, and their total acceptance that there is two sets of laws (one for the elite and one for the deplorables).
If the House had followed proper and vetted impeachment procedures, both sides of the story would have been told and the charges most likely would have been dropped. But, then President would not be tagged as an impeached president going into the 2020 election which was the liberal intent all along. To accomplish that, the liberals needed to have voters be ignorant. Unfortunately for the liberal agenda, even with the help of the main stream media, the voter proved to be more intelligent than the liberals give them credit. The results can be seen in the increased approval of the President in polls and most likely be expressed in the 2020 election. The liberals are reaping what they have sown. To quote President Lincoln, ” you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” This is reflected in lower numbers of patrons of MSM and support for the liberal agendas.
@Randy: Democrats actually prefer to be lied to. The truth does not support their ideological views, so being lied to is the only way they can carry on. False accusation after false accusation, all fully supported and promoted by the liberal media, have fallen flat, exposed as constructed lies, yet the Democrat base continues to believe the NEXT one will be factual.
Nothing but inherently dishonest people.
@Nathan Blue:
What exactly is today’s defense for Trump again?
It started out with “he didn’t do it” and went to “it ain’t all that bad” and “every president does it” to “it wasn’t what he meant” to “he was just trying to stop fraud for the good of the country” to, to, well, what’s the new one for today?
@Ronald J. Ward: No, it has remained “He didn’t do it”, even as the Democrats polled and focus grouped what to actually accuse him of. Turns out, he committed NO impeachable offense.
Today, it’s still he committed no impeachable offense and the Democrats actually confirm that fact with their lack of evidence.
Of course, you won’t answer the question in #12. Well, not surprising.
@Ronald J. Ward: Like the Nazis, you and your party just don’t have the self-awareness to understand you’ve gone over the line of legality, morality, and just plain understanding of what it means to live in a Constitutional Republic.
Many despots justify their actions, and the Trump hatred is pretty simple. They guy is doing well as President, and that’s what burns you.
If we impeach him on simple word parsing like you partisan idiots are doing, we can impeach any president for anything they do, weekly.
I’ve never offered any defense for Trump other than looking at the evidence. There is no good proof that he did anything wrong, and this all started when Trump legally fought back and started investigating the corruption of the Democrats.
That’s what this is about, and if they repeat things like “it’s clear he committed a crime”, morons like you start to believe it…because that’s what you want to believe.
I’m objective. You are not, little dog.
If you want a civil war, than bring it. You’ll never remove Trump.
@Randy: Thanks for that, Randy. Very cogent. I honestly try to understand what’s going on, because Leftists and propagandists like what we see here truly believe what they are saying…and there isn’t any real opening to have a discussion.
The mainstream media blasts what they want, and they control minds. I come here to see other sides, even ones that are a bit provocative.
That someone like Greg gets paid to come here and attack that free speech…as if saying “how dare you say things off talking points we provide”, and AJ comes here to attack us…like an rabid antifa stooge…is the very definition of fascism.
They don’t understand that this isn’t about who’s “right”, it’s about freedom of thought and choice. They don’t understand that their vitriol is why we “stacked the bodies” in the the 20th Century.
They are truly supporting things that will get lots of people killed. FA supports freedom and the will of the people to choose.
They are fomenting true civil war.
@Nathan Blue:
I’ve notice an uptick in the kitchen sink excuse that it’s now a product of Trump hatred along with of course, Trump’s such an all around great guy and doing such an awesome job.
Of course you’ll never see any proof of Trump guilt, as I’ve argued repeatedly. He either didn’t do it or didn’t mean to do it or meant to do it but it wasn’t that bad or it was bad but he did it for the good of the country or it was bad for the country but he’s such a swell guy and circling back to he didn’t do it. Facts will never be a factor for you.
And I haven’t heard a great deal about impeachment Article # 2. It’s as if the Trump and Putin enablers just don’t want to talk about it and damn the witnesses, just pound the gavel and acquit.
As for this talk a civil war, kinda throws all this “blue lives matters” talk of the right out the window.
It’s like this. Trump will be impeached just as he should be. Republicans in the Senate will ignore their oath and acquit, just as they would if Trump shot down an innocent bystander in Town Square Mall.
@Nathan Blue:
You think these Democrats care about legality, morality or the Constitution? Those things are an impediment to what they want to accomplish.
@Ronald J. Ward:
Democrats vote to impeach because it is good for their party. Republicans will vote against it because there are no grounds for impeachment.
@Ronald J. Ward: There’s no hatred, and there’s no excuse. Your cognitive dissonance is stoked and informed by simple politics, and there isn’t real evidence to impeach this President on.
That’s it.
The point is for you and your party to move forward on this is truly seditious, and I feel you are going to get people killed.
I’m talking to either a paid troll or someone truly compromised psychologically, so even though we’ve all destroyed your precepts, you keep repeating things like a mental patient.
No one absolves Trump of committing any crime, and the thought experiment you keep espousing of “he could do anything an his followers would justify it” isn’t even rational, and laughable because we see your “team” moving away from democracy and due process, so how can you accuse others of what your party is doing?
It’s the haze of rabid hatred, and you are blind. You are not the majority, and other Americans get to have a voice outside of the propaganda complex your party has installed.
All your insane comments do is make me proud for standing up for sane and measured thinking in these dark times. Your masters are wrong, and they are out for blood.
They won’t get it, and your party will not win at this coup attempt. Shame on you for not taking a moment to see where you blind belief might take us all.
You’re winning votes for the Republicans.
@Nathan Blue:
Thing is, not only could he do anything and his followers would justify it, he has done it. Oh I get the part that the true conservatives of today actually applaud locking non-white children in cages, promoting racism, lying about protecting pre-existing conditions, stealing social security and medicare to give to the rich, pro-sexual assault, driving the working class further into poverty and such as that-even if you don’t want to admit you advocate such. I get that
But you’ve given him a pass on what once was hands off issues such as exploding the deficit, ass kissing foreign dictators, suggesting gun confiscation without due process (and obviously backtracking once instructed by the NRA), stealing from and then being forced to repay veterans, and so forth. Gone are the days of fiscal conservatism as we now know that isn’t true. And Christianity? Don’t even get me started.
So yes, there’s much discipline and tenets republicans and so-called conservatives have conceded under Trump. There literally is nothing Trump could do or say that his party wouldn’t accept, Fox News wouldn’t endorse, and his base wouldn’t blindly adhere to.
Just an example is the sales pitch that Trump was trying to root out fraud in his asking Zelenski for dirt on Biden (I mean, we are in agreement that Trump did call and did ask for this favor, uh, right? Or is that fake news?). So a man who got caught and forced to repay $25 million to the vets he defrauded, had to repay $millions to the folks he cheated with his Trump University, bragged about stiffing 1000s of workers out of their pay after building his casino and then referred to it in the debates as “good business”,,,,is now all of a sudden concerned about tax payer fraud to Ukraine.
Nothing about Trump’s defense makes sense or adds up. It’s utterly asinine on every front. It’s just that to enablers, he can do no wrong and that your hatred of democrats supersedes everything.
@Ronald J. Ward:
All you are saying it this is projection: it’s how your feel about Trump and Republicans.
As I said, you are psychologically compromised.
BTW, I don’t hate Democrats. I’ve voted for Dem Presidents before, and I voted for Dems here in my home state, in the last election.
This “us or them” mentality has been programmed into you, and you are the tyrannical voice that is threatening us all.
Reading your last post, you have SO MUCH baggage that the Dem party has weaponized against another group of people.
Typical Atheist loser, wanting to paint the world in their own religion…just like every other religion.
And through the tirades, you don’t understand you won’t put that criticizing eye on your own party.
You’re the modern Leftist version of hillbilly moron…ignorant, to the extreme.
@Nathan Blue:
Yet you ignored every single factual fault (not opinion) of Trump and every single quality that goes against conservatism or hell, even humanity.
And, you always have. And, you always will. Nothing matters. You can no more see any problems of his actions with Ukraine or his impedance of constitutional congressional investigation rights than you can with his exploding the deficit or being a serial lying vagina grabber or that he openly flirted with gun confiscation- all qualities that would have had so-called conservatives take to the streets with pitchforks and torches.
And on another note:
— Donald J. Trump, 2008
@Ronald J. Ward: The Bushes come from a line of traitors Samuel, Prescott, George, George war profiteering and war mongering every last one.
@Ronald J. Ward: You’re not a serious person here for a serious conversation. Your last comment didn’t even make sense.
I’m not a Conservative.
Trump is not a Conservative.
I know.
And careful with that “gotcha” game because you party routinely flops it’s position and beliefs to fit what ever power grab it is currently pursuing.
Trump continued the same border policies as Obama, and he continued to investigate Burisma…like Obama.
Any umbrage you take is utterly dismissed by way of your own party already doing what Trump is doing.
@Nathan Blue:
As I watch the House impeachment debate today, I am sickened to my stomach. Every Democrats says the same thing; Orange Man Bad. They want Trump gone. It doesn’t matter that the CIC has a duty to ferret out corruption in our government, corruption Joe Biden has admitted to.
The House will impeach. And now, Jabba The Hut Nadler is lying how Obama “provided thousand of documents that AG Holder testified to.” Obama claimed Executive Privilege in the hearings on Fast and Furious. Eric Holder was censured over his refusal to cooperate with Congress.
Our government is broken. Horribly. I have a good friend who was elected to Congress in 2018. He tells me that the hardest thing to deal with is the corruption of the members of the House. Corruption that is known but not dealt with by Speaker Pelosi even when brought to her attention.
This tide will turn. Sooner or later, the House will be controlled by the GOP and then, perhaps there will be a Democrat president. He/she/it will be summarily impeached. This is the degradation of our Constitution the Democrats are heaping upon us.
@retire05: Look, they can say it’s “clear” all they want…but it’s not…no impeachment has ever been formed on “opinions”. But that’s what the Dems have done to the country: every headline is from the “opinion” column.
If they try to remove him, I really wonder if the White House isn’t going to be surrounded by 63 million people…
They got to hold a miscarriage of justice in the House, but are already rabid about the idea of the Senate not impeaching him?
What!?
I will join millions of Americans in protecting our nation, our Constitution, and way of life if they even dare to take Trump out of office. They are committing sedition and treason.
They are wrong, and this is how Nazi Germany happens.
@Ronald J. Ward:
Except WHAT has he done to justify impeachment? Care to provide the evidence? Be the FIRST because no one else has. Besides, YOU are the only one that has demonstrated that your leader could rape and lie and you would STILL follow like a lap dog.
@Nathan Blue:
RCP has approval for impeachment underwater. Granted, not by much but the American people are not the deplorable dimwits those on the left think we are. We can see, with our own eyes, what is happening. Especially when Jabba the Hut states clearly that removing Donald J. Trump is too important to leave up to the voters in less than a year. Jabba The Hut’s statement says it all. They did not like the decision of the American people made in November 2016 and the Dems are going to do everything they can to remedy that election because they, the D.C. elite, know what is best for us.
Nadler just said that Trump threatens our next election. They know that none of the Clown Car Show can defeat Trump. What to do? What to do? IMPEACH!!!