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Post by Webster on Sept 14, 2023 16:08:48 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The White House sent a letter on Wednesday to US news outlets, urging them to “scrutinize House Republicans’ demonstrably false claims” surrounding their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. The memo, which was sent by Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, and addressed to editorial leadership at media organizations, came after House speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the Biden impeachment inquiry on Tuesday. The memo reads: It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.The inquiry has no supporting evidence, which “should set off alarm bells for news organizations”, Sams said. Republicans have sought to directly connect Hunter Biden’s financial dealings to his father, but have so far failed to produce evidence that the president directly participated in his son’s work. -- In the modern media environment, where every day liars and hucksters peddle disinformation and lies everywhere from Facebook to Fox, process stories that fail to unpack the illegitimacy of the claims on which House Republicans are basing all their actions only serve to generate confusion, put false premises in people’s feeds, and obscure the truth.For now, the White House views the situation from a communications standpoint rather than as a legal issue, according to CNN. The principal objective is to counter what many Democrats fear could become an ingrained narrative, with one source telling the outlet: If you don’t answer it, it can sink into the voter psyche. They’re walking that line.
The speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, tried to evade questions on Wednesday about why he does not intend to hold a floor vote on the Biden impeachment inquiry, despite having said just weeks ago that he would not open an official probe without a vote. In an interview with Breitbart on 1 September, he said: To open an impeachment inquiry is a serious matter, and House Republicans would not take it lightly or use it for political purposes. The American people deserve to be heard on this matter through their elected representatives. That’s why, if we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person.When CNN’s Manu Raju asked about his change in position, McCarthy responded: You know what’s interesting to me, you’re a reporter for CNN, right? I just laid out to you a lot of allegations based upon the American public.Asked again why he had changed his position on an impeachment of Biden, he said: “I never changed my position.”
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Post by Webster on Sept 14, 2023 16:09:29 GMT -5
(The Guardian) As House Republicans kick off an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, the White House is executing a long-planned strategy to meet politics with politics, according to a New York Times report. The Biden team’s goal is to discredit the inquiry and convince Americans that it is nothing more than base partisanship driven by a radical opposition, the report says. “We’re battling it out in the court of public opinion at this stage because that’s all that McCarthy has done, the theater of impeachment,” Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, told the paper. The report continues: For the Biden team, the mission now is to discredit the impeachment inquiry among independent voters and wayward Democrats before it reaches a crescendo. It is a strategy employed in the past by other presidents targeted for impeachment, Bill Clinton and Donald J. Trump. The Republicans so far have helped Mr. Biden’s effort, often speaking about the investigations into the president’s family in starkly political terms.
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Post by Webster on Sept 14, 2023 16:11:25 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Sept 14, 2023 16:15:17 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Joe Biden has said Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry against him because “they want to shut down the government”. Without agreement on new funding by 30 September, the federal government will at least partly shut down. Hard-right Republicans are demanding cuts to some spending and increases in other areas, particularly immigration enforcement. Some made an impeachment inquiry – regarding the business affairs of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and unsubstantiated allegations of corruption involving Joe Biden – a condition of support for keeping the government open. Given he must run the House with just a five-seat majority, the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is at the mercy of such pressure. With more than five Republicans having expressed skepticism about whether impeachment would be merited, McCarthy skipped a vote on whether to open an inquiry. That followed the example of Nancy Pelosi, his Democratic predecessor, who did not hold a House vote before proceedings against Donald Trump began in 2019. Notably, it also opened McCarthy to accusations of hypocrisy, given that he excoriated Pelosi and told rightwing news outlets at the time that he would hold a vote. After an inquiry, impeachment must be voted on by the full House. A yes vote sends the president to the Senate for trial. A vote there decides if the president will be acquitted, or convicted and removed. Trump was impeached twice, first for seeking political dirt on the Biden family and others in Ukraine, then for inciting the January 6 attack on Congress. The second Trump impeachment was the most bipartisan in history, with 10 House Republicans voting to impeach and seven Republican senators voting to convict. But enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal to see Trump acquitted. The other impeached presidents – Andrew Johnson (1868) and Bill Clinton (1998) – also survived Senate trials. As Democrats now hold the Senate, the effort against Biden stands next to no chance of succeeding.
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Post by Webster on Sept 18, 2023 13:20:14 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Hunter Biden sues IRS over disclosures of tax informationHunter Biden has filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, the Associated Press reports, alleging that the tax authority released his information illegally. The suit targets the actions of two agents who claimed to be whistleblowers and gave interviews to Congress and others about the long-running investigation into his business dealings, alleging those actions violated Biden’s right to privacy. Biden is seeking $1,000 in damages per unauthorized disclosure of his personal information, attorneys fees and the release of all documents related to the case. Last week, Hunter Biden was indicted on gun charges related to lying about his drug use while purchasing a firearm, a development that came about after a plea deal intended to resolve the federal investigation into his conduct collapsed. The same week, Republican speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy announced the chamber would begin an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden over the long-running corruption allegations against Hunter, despite Republicans having neither definitive proof, nor necessarily the votes (yet) to successfully impeach the president.
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Post by Webster on Sept 18, 2023 13:21:26 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Hunter Biden’s legal and political problems are connected to his drug use and his quest for business deals in foreign countries. Now they’re at the center of the impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden, as well as the federal prosecution of Hunter and his counteroffensive of lawsuits against those involved in helping the GOP make their case. Last week, the Guardian’s Mary Yang put together a recap of the complicated saga, including the IRS whistleblower allegations that are at the center of the lawsuit he filed against the tax agency today: Federal prosecutors indicted Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, over illegally possessing a firearm in Delaware on Thursday. The indictment comes a month after the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed the US attorney David Weiss, a Trump nominee, to oversee the investigation as special counsel.
Hunter Biden has been at the center of a years-long investigation into his tax affairs that was set to close with a guilty plea. But that plea deal fell apart at a Delaware courthouse after the Trump-appointed judge said she could not agree to the agreement, which ensured Biden would avoid jail time in a separate case of illegally possessing a gun while using drugs.
Amid the controversy, the president has repeatedly said he supports his son and Hunter has been seen regularly at family events. Asked if President Biden would pardon his son in the event of any conviction, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters: “No.” But the younger Biden has been embroiled in a list of unrelated controversies for years, including his overseas dealings and struggles with addiction, which ex-President Trump and his allies have regularly sought to use as fodder for attacks.
Arguing that he’s a “private citizen”, Hunter Biden’s defenders have increasingly turned to lawsuits as a tactic against the ongoing onslaught of Republican allegations against him. The suit filed today against the IRS comes after two agents went public with allegations that the investigation into the president’s son’s alleged failure to pay income tax was hamstrung by political considerations. Last week, a FBI agent contradicted the testimony of one of the IRS whistleblowers, the New York Times reported. Earlier last week, Biden’s attorneys sued Garrett Ziegler, a former Donald Trump White House aide, for improperly spreading embarrassing images and emails from the president’s son online. Here’s more on that suit, from Reuters: The lawyers of U.S. President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against an aide in the White House of former President Donald Trump over the aide’s alleged role in publication of embarrassing emails and images.
The lawsuit accuses Garrett Ziegler, a former aide to Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, of violating California’s computer fraud and data access laws, and demands a jury trial. The 14-page complaint was filed in a California federal court. Ziegler and other unnamed defendants are accused of obtaining “tens of thousands of emails, thousands of photos, and dozens of videos and recordings” belonging to the president’s son and spreading them online.
The suit accuses the former Trump aide of “accessing, tampering with, manipulating, altering, copying and damaging computer data that they do not own.” A computer fraud sentence can carry prison time or a fine in California.
Data that has been accessed and copied includes Hunter Biden’s credit card details, financial and bank records, and “information of the type contained in a file of a consumer reporting agency,” the suit says. At least some of the data “originally was stored on the plaintiff’s iPhone and backed-up to plaintiff’s iCloud storage,” and accessed by “circumventing technical or code-based barriers that were specifically designed and intended to prevent such access.”
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Post by Webster on Sept 19, 2023 11:31:09 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Sept 28, 2023 16:01:28 GMT -5
(The Guardian) House Republicans to hold first hearing on Biden impeachment inquiryThe House oversight committee is about to hold its first hearing in the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden, the latest step in a months-long effort investigating the president and his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings that has yet to produce substantial evidence of wrongdoing. Today’s hearing, titled The Basis for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Joseph R Biden Jr, comes two weeks after House speaker Kevin McCarthy launched the inquiry in response to demands from hard-right members of the House Republican conference.
Three witnesses are scheduled to appear in front of the House oversight committee’s hearing in the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden. One is Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and paid Fox News contributor who testified against Donald Trump’s first impeachment. Another is Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant who has made misleading claims about Hunter Biden’s finances. The third is Eileen O’Connor, a former assistant attorney general in Department of Justice’s tax division, who wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal criticizing the investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances. O’Connor served on Trump’s 2016 transition team for the treasury department, the Washington Post reported.
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Post by Webster on Sept 28, 2023 16:02:12 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Hearing begins, two weeks after inquiry launched over unproven allegationsToday’s hearing in the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden comes two weeks after the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, launched the inquiry into the president over unproven allegations of corruption in his family’s business dealings. “This logical next step will give our committees the full power to gather the full facts and answers for the American public,” McCarthy said earlier this month. -- That’s exactly what we want to know – the answers. I believe the president would want to answer these questions and allegations as well.It is unclear if the GOP has the evidence to substantiate the long-running claims that the president profited from the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden and other family members, or even the votes for impeachment. The impeachment inquiry will be handled by the oversight, judiciary and ways and means committees, all of which are controlled by McCarthy allies. While impeachment can be the first step to removing a president from office, that appears unlikely to happen. If the House impeaches Biden, the matter would then go to the Senate, which would have to support his conviction with a two-thirds majority – a high bar to clear in a chamber currently controlled by Democrats.
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Post by Webster on Sept 28, 2023 16:03:10 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Republican House oversight committee chair James Comer has started a hearing with a recap of the GOP’s case against the president. “Since assuming our Republican majority in January, the House Oversight and Accountability committee has uncovered a mountain of evidence revealing how Joe Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain,” Comer said. He continued: For years, President Biden has lied to the American people about his knowledge of and participation in his family’s corrupt business schemes. At least 10 times, Joe Biden lied to the American people that he never spoke to his family about their business dealings. He lied by telling the American people that there was an absolute wall between his official government duties and his personal life. Let’s be clear, there wasn’t a wall. The door was wide open to those who purchased what a business associate described as the Biden brand. Evidence reveals that President Joe Biden spoke dined and developed relationships with his family’s foreign business targets.To be clear, despite what Comer says, Republicans have not yet proven that Biden financially benefitted from overseas business dealings by his son Hunter Biden, or any other member of his family. That’s apparently not stopping Comer from saying that they have.
Next up was Jason Smith, who is chair of the Ways and Means committee, which is one of the three bodies overseeing the impeachment inquiry. He’s not a member of the oversight committee, but Comer got lawmakers to agree to let him onto the panel for today. “Yesterday the Ways and Means Committee released new documents showing president Biden was not just aware of his son’s business dealings, but he was connected to them,” Smith said. He then went into a lengthy explanation of the evidence his committee obtained.
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Post by Webster on Sept 28, 2023 16:04:04 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The final speaker was Jim Jordan, who is also chair of the judiciary committee, the third of three panels involved in the inquiry. “This is a tale as old as time,” Jordan said. “Politician takes action that makes money for his family, and then he tries to conceal it.” Jordan then zeroed in on Hunter Biden’s work with Ukrainian gas company Burisma, alleging that Joe Biden, as vice-president in 2015, pressured Ukrainian authorities looking into corrupt actions by the firm. -- “Never forget four fundamental facts. Hunter Biden gets put on the board of Burisma, gets paid a lot of money. Hunter Biden’s not qualified. Fact number two: … he got on the board because of the brand because of the name. Fact number three: the executives at Burisma ask Hunter Biden to weigh in and help them with the pressure they are under from the prosecutor in Ukraine. Fact number four: Joe Biden goes to Ukraine on December 9, 2015, gives this speech attacking the prosecutor that starts the process of getting that guy fired.”That allegation seemed to have been undercut earlier this week when Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president at the time of the prosecutor Viktor Shokin’s firing, told Fox News Joe Biden wasn’t involved in that decision:
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Post by Webster on Sept 28, 2023 16:05:06 GMT -5
(The Guardian) It was the committee’s Democratic ranking member Jamie Raskin’s turn to speak next. But before he gave his opening statement, he wanted to know if the hearing was following the House’s rules, considering the chamber had not taken a vote on beginning an impeachment hearing into Joe Biden. Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy opted not to do so and it’s not clear if Republicans would have enough votes to approve beginning the investigation. “I have a parliamentary inquiry. Given that the committee has not been authorized by the full House to conduct an impeachment inquiry, Am I correct in assuming that we’re obligated to follow the rules of the House, including section 370 of the rules and manual which prescribe engaging in personalities towards the president?” Raskin said. Here’s a good article from Politico on what he’s referring to. After some discussion, Comer replied, “The Speaker of the House has authorized the impeachment inquiry. It has been authorized.” But then fellow Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, too, objected. “I believe changing of the rules must require a vote from Full House of Representatives,” she said. “Given the unique nature and subject matter of today’s hearing topic, these words will not be ruled out of order,” Comer replied. “Thank you for clarifying. Mr. Chairman. We obviously have an honest disagreement about that,” Raskin said.
Raskin then launched into a refutation of the GOP case against Joe Biden, aided by props. In front of him was a tablet with a countdown to the government shutdown, which will happen after midnight on Sunday, unless Congress gets its act together and passes legislation to reauthorize the government’s spending. Behind him, he had aides holding up placards with quotes from Republican lawmakers, including speaker Kevin McCarthy, complaining about dysfunction in their caucus. “Alright, so, let’s get it straight. We’re 62 hours away from shutting down the government of the United States of America, and Republicans are launching an impeachment drive based on a long debunked and discredited lie,” Raskin said. “No foreign enemies ever been able to shut down the government United States but now Maga Republicans are about to do just that. But they don’t want to cut off public services to the people and deny paychecks to more than a million service members without first launching an impeachment drive, even when they don’t have a shred of evidence against President Biden for an impeachable offense.” In summary, Raskin said: “If the Republicans had a smoking gun, or even a dripping water pistol, they wouldn’t be presenting it today. But they’ve got nothing on Joe Biden.”
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Post by Webster on Sept 28, 2023 16:05:50 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Democrats' strategy at impeachment hearing: gum up the works with parliamentary tacticsThe Democratic minority’s strategy is becoming clear at this impeachment hearing: lawmakers are using the House’s procedure to delay and distract from what Republican lawmakers were hoping would be a crisp presentation of their evidence. The oversight committee’s top Democrat Jamie Raskin, aided by counterpart Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, kicked off the effort by objecting to the committee’s basis for its inquiry, citing section 370 of the House Rules and Manual. It was eventually swatted down by chair James Comer. Then, at the end of his opening statement, Raskin demanded that the committee subpoena Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for Donald Trump, and Lev Parnas, his close associate. Giuliani and Parnas were key figures in 2019, when House Democrats impeached Trump for his attempt to pressure Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy into investigating Joe Biden over his son’s business activities. “Mr. Chairman, if this dysfunction caucus is going to insist on going forward, we must receive the testimony of Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas,” Raskin said. “These insiders know the origins of the lie upon which this sham impeachment is based and who worked to spread it. We know that Mr. Parnas is ready and willing to testify, and as a former US attorney and mayor, Mr. Giuliani will surely agree to enlighten us on everything.” The hearing then ground to a halt as committee members took a recorded vote. Raskin’s motion failed, with 20 votes against and 19 in favor, but perhaps the delay was the goal all along.
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Post by Webster on Sept 28, 2023 16:06:56 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The hearing’s four invited witnesses are now giving their opening statements. All four are experts in the law and accounting. The Republicans have invited former assistant attorney general Eileen O’Connor, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley and Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant. Democrats have invited Michael J. Gerhardt, a professor of jurisprudence at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The White House has released a statement responding to the ongoing impeachment hearing by the House Oversight Committee: There are 60 hours and 55 minutes until the government shuts down because of extreme House Republicans’ chaos and inability to govern. The consequences for the American people will be very damaging – from lost jobs, to troops working without pay, to jeopardizing important efforts to fight fentanyl, provide food assistance, and more. Nothing can distract from that.
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Post by Webster on Sept 28, 2023 16:07:47 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The impeachment hearing is now well underway, and the two parties’ tactics are becoming clear. Republicans are taking viewers deep into the weeds, unveiling a bevy of evidence they say proves corruption on the part of Joe Biden. They’re asking their three witnesses about specific aspects of the evidence, and asking them for their opinions of them. Democrats are meanwhile questioning the entire premise of the hearing, and in particular the fact that the full House has not voted to approve an impeachment inquiry. The goal is, clearly, to discredit the entire idea of impeaching the president.
Republican Jim Jordan is using his speaking time to establish that Republicans have a basis to open an impeachment investigation. Citing instances where Joe Biden’s White House staff responded to questions about his son’s business activities, Jordan asked George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley, “What do you think about all those false statements from the White House and this abuse of power issue?” “Well, the involvement of White House staff and executive branch staff has been really one of the trip wires we saw in Nixon and to some extent, even in Clinton, the degree to which you enlist support for a false narrative, or to obstruct Congress, can go into things like abuse of power,” Turley said. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington DC’s non-voting Democratic delegate, asked Michael J. Gerhardt to elaborate on the dangers of “impeachments [that] are initiated without any evidence of wrongdoing by a president.” “They trivialize impeachment, they trivialize the constitution, and they ride roughshod over the rule of law. Nothing good comes from abusing your power, whether it’s done by a president or by Congress,” Gerhardt said.
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