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Post by Webster on Mar 13, 2024 14:55:23 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Hunter Biden declines invitation to impeachment hearingHunter Biden will not attend a public hearing related to House Republicans’ efforts to impeach his father, Joe Biden, his legal team said. In a letter obtained by AP and Axios, Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell informed the chair of the House oversight committee, James Comer, that his client will not accept the committee’s invitation for him to appear for the 20 March hearing. The letter reads: Your latest step – this March 6 invitation – is not a serious oversight proceeding. It is your attempt to resuscitate your Conference’s moribund inquiry with a made-for-right-wing-media, circus act.Calling the invitation “a Hail Mary pass”, Lowell said he thought even Comer would “recognize your baseless impeachment proceeding was dead.” Although no evidence has been produced, Republicans have accused Joe Biden and his family of personally profiting from his position while vice-president and have zeroed in on his son, Hunter, who had business ventures in Ukraine and China during that period.
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Post by Webster on Mar 15, 2024 16:11:25 GMT -5
(The Guardian) White House urges Mike Johnson to 'move on' and end Biden impeachment inquiryThe White House has urged the House speaker, Mike Johnson, to end impeachment efforts against Joe Biden, arguing in a letter that House Republicans’ months-long effort to uncover wrongdoing by the president has come up empty. Writing to Johnson, White House counsel Ed Siskel said it is “obviously time to move on”, noting that testimony and records turned over to the House oversight and judiciary committees have “turned up evidence that … the president did nothing wrong”. The four-page letter comes as the Republican impeachment drive has come to a near-standstill after the indictment of a key witness on charges of making up allegations against the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and amid a tenuous House Republican majority.
White House counsel Ed Siskel’s letter to the House speaker, Mike Johnson, calls on House Republicans drop their efforts to impeachment Joe Biden and “not continue to waste time on political stunts”. Siskel writes that House Republicans have spent more than a year investigating Biden in an “effort to find something – anything – to hurt the president politically”, but that the investigation “has continually turned up evidence that, in fact, the president did nothing wrong”. He writes: The House Majority has reportedly collected more than 100,000 pages of records, interviewed dozens of witnesses, and held multiple public hearings – but none of the evidence has demonstrated that the President did anything wrong. In fact, it has shown the opposite of what House Republicans have claimed.“It is obviously time to move on, Mr Speaker,” Siskel wrote. - This impeachment is over. There is too much important work to be done for the American people to continue wasting time on this charade.
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Post by Webster on Mar 15, 2024 16:28:27 GMT -5
(The Guardian) A letter by the White House’s top lawyer to House speaker Mike Johnson urging House Republicans to give up on their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden is a sign that the White House is taking an increasingly aggressive stance against the impeachment inquiry, which Democrats say is a clear effort to distract voters during an election year. In the letter, White House counsel Ed Siskel tells Johnson that members of his own party are starting to turn away from him because of the impeachment inquiry. He cites reports that Republicans are looking for an exit strategy after failing to clinch the impeachment. Siskel also quotes Ken Buck, a Republican representative from Colorado who announced earlier this week that he would resign from his post at the end of March, leaving the GOP with a weaker House majority. House Republicans over the last six months have been trying to find evidence that Biden benefited from his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business activities. But after making clear their goal of impeaching the president, Republicans are scrambling to determine how to move forward even after they appear to have exhausted witnesses and documented sources. The House oversight committee is holding a hearing next week with former business partners of Hunter Biden, but it is unclear whether witnesses can deliver the definitive evidence Republicans have been hoping for.
House speaker Mike Johnson has acknowledged that it is unclear if House Republican impeachment investigation into Joe Biden will disclose impeachable offenses. Johnson admitted that “people have gotten frustrated” with the inquiry as he spoke to reporters on Wednesday. -- I know that people have gotten frustrated sometimes that it’s [dragged] on too long. But in our constitutional system, that is the way it’s supposed to work.Though he “has not been able to take the time to do the deep dive into evidence”, Johnson has insisted that what has been revealed is “alarming”. Johnson, as he opened a House GOP retreat late Wednesday in West Virginia, said: Does it reach the ‘treason, high crimes and misdemeanor’ standard? Everyone will have to make that evaluation when we pull all the evidence together.
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Post by Webster on Mar 15, 2024 17:04:01 GMT -5
(The Guardian) A spokesperson for House speaker Mike Johnson has responded to a letter sent by the White House’s top lawyer urging House Republicans to give up on their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. In a scathing letter on Friday, White House counsel Ed Siskel told Johnson “it is clear the House Republican impeachment is over” and noting that despite collecting over 100,000 pages of records and conducting interviews with dozens of witnesses, including multiple public hearings, “none of the evidence has demonstrated that the president did anything wrong.” Raj Shah, a spokesperson for Johnson, accused Biden of lying and said it was not up to the White House to decide what happened with the inquiry. An email shared by Reuters reads: The White House does not get to decide how impeachment gets resolved, that is for Congress to decide.
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Post by Webster on Mar 20, 2024 14:53:37 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Democratic lawmaker mocks House GOP as they press on with Biden impeachment pushHouse Republicans appear to be pressing on with their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden’s alleged corruption, even as they have yet to turn up evidence that the president benefited from his family members’ overseas business dealings. They’re also dealing with the fallout from revelations that an informant crucial to their case received information from Russian intelligence. But as the House oversight committee gathered for their latest hearing in the investigation, Democratic lawmaker Jared Moskowitz sought to remind them by showing up in a Vladimir Putin mask:
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Post by Webster on Mar 20, 2024 14:55:48 GMT -5
(The Guardian) House Republicans have long clamored for Hunter Biden to appear before them. And while the president’s son did consent to a behind-closed-doors interview, NBC News reported that his lawyer last week told Republicans: “Mr Biden declines your invitation to this carnival side show.” So the oversight committee today left an empty seat with a placard reading “Mr Biden”, perhaps hoping he would make another surprise appearance.
Republicans invited two witnesses to today’s House oversight committee hearing: Tony Bobulinski and Jason Galanis, both former business associates of Hunter Biden. But only Bobulinski could actually show up, since Galanis is currently incarcerated for securities fraud. Bobulinski, meanwhile, has his own checkered past, one that the committee’s top Democrat Jamie Raskin made note of at the hearing:
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Post by Webster on Mar 21, 2024 17:10:55 GMT -5
(The Guardian) A White House spokesperson poured cold water on Republicans’ stated intention to invite Joe Biden to testify in public in his own impeachment hearings, lamenting “a sad stunt” and telling the rightwing congressman steering the effort: “Call it a day, pal.” James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chair of the House oversight committee, has led attempts to impeach the president over alleged corruption involving the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden. At the end of a long hearing on Wednesday, Comer said: In the coming days I will invite President Biden to the oversight committee to provide his testimony and explain why his family received tens of millions of dollars … We need to hear from the president himself.Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, responded swiftly and brutally. “LOL,” Sams wrote, adding a face-palm emoji.
Hunter Biden, who has pleaded not guilty to federal tax and gun charges, has testified in private. So has James Biden, the president’s brother. Wednesday’s hearing featured two Republican witnesses, both former associates of Hunter Biden. Tony Bobulinski appeared in person. Jason Galanis appeared by video link from prison in Alabama, where he is serving a near-16-year sentence for fraud. Another key source for Republicans, Alexander Smirnov, was recently imprisoned in Nevada after being charged with lying to the FBI about supposed corruption involving the Biden family. Smirnov has also been linked to Russian intelligence. On Wednesday, Bobulinski and Galanis claimed Joe Biden was involved in family business activities, though a meeting described by Bobulinski took place in 2017, after Biden left office as vice-president and years before he beat Donald Trump to become president.
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Post by Webster on Mar 21, 2024 17:56:17 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Yesterday, at the conclusion of their latest hearing in their troubled impeachment investigation into Joe Biden, oversight committee chair James Comer proposed having the president himself testify. The White House’s reaction? “LOL”. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly: A White House spokesperson poured cold water on Republicans’ stated intention to invite Joe Biden to testify in public in his own impeachment hearings, lamenting “a sad stunt” and telling the rightwing congressman steering the effort: “Call it a day, pal.”
James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chair of the House oversight committee, has led attempts to impeach the president over alleged corruption involving the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden.
At the end of a long hearing on Wednesday, Comer said: “In the coming days I will invite President Biden to the oversight committee to provide his testimony and explain why his family received tens of millions of dollars … We need to hear from the president himself.”
Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, responded swiftly and brutally.
“LOL,” Sams wrote, adding a face-palm emoji.
He added: “Comer knows 20-plus witnesses have testified that [Joe Biden] did nothing wrong. He knows that the hundreds of thousands of pages of records he’s received have refuted his false allegations. This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment. Call it a day, pal.”
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