DOJ’s farce should force House to keep investigating Bidens
Washington Examiner
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House Republicans’ oversight of Biden family transgressions has been well-focused and effective, even as elements of the Justice Department have run corrupt interference on the Bidens’ behalf.
Indeed, even last week’s appropriate but minor indictment against the president’s son, Hunter Biden, on gun charges would not have occurred if congressional oversight had been less conscientious.
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The GOP should not, however, let its prematurely created impeachment inquiry detract from the basic fact-finding mission of its oversight efforts. Sometimes impeachment, which necessarily focuses on whether a president has transgressed specifically in a way meriting removal from office, can get in the way of the broader imperative to inform the citizenry about abuses of the public trust that may be serious but not impeachable. Impeachment or no impeachment, Republicans should redouble their broader, and broadly successful, investigative efforts.
Because of House oversight efforts (and excellent earlier efforts of Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin), including the provision of safe harbor for whistleblowers, we already know an astonishing amount about the perfidy of President Joe Biden, Hunter, and other Biden family members. We also have plenteous indicators that the Justice Department has worked overtime to sweep most of it under the rug.
First, the abhorrent behavior of the Justice Department, including Attorney General Merrick Garland and Delaware U.S. Attorney (and now special counsel) David Weiss, needs to be discussed. One reason ordinary congressional oversight is so necessary is to make up for and expose the Justice Department’s willful failures.
In his five-year sham probe of Hunter Biden’s activities, Weiss has allowed the statute of limitations to expire on almost all of the most serious of Hunter’s apparent tax evasions, which also include tax anomalies in his flagrant foreign influence peddling. The same goes for most of the potential bribery and money-laundering felonies, exactly those that might also implicate the president himself.
Even when whistleblower accounts shamed Weiss into a bogus plea deal with Hunter and a somewhat laughable indictment on weapons charges, Weiss still showed no interest in the influence-peddling schemes for which statutes of limitations haven’t yet passed. The main reason we know about this is because of oversight by House and Senate Republicans doing the job the Justice Department won’t.
We know this is the case because Hunter Biden’s lawyer said so in a letter blasting the committees for keeping alive investigations that Weiss and Garland were trying to close. In the letter, lawyer Abbe Lowell mentioned constitutional infirmities with one of the gun charges — infirmities of which prosecutors surely are aware, which means they know the charge allows them to look tough against the Biden son while he eventually may skate without facing major consequences.
Despite Lowell’s crocodile tears, what congressional Republicans have unearthed is substantial. Several Biden family members, including widowed paramours, ex-wives, grandchildren, and nieces who had no skills helpful to foreign clients, were on a gravy train that provided more than $20 million in foreign business to the Biden family through some 20 shell companies. Emails and definitive testimony show that Hunter Biden and his clients behaved as if the main product being sold to the clients was influenced by “the Big Guy,” Joe Biden, whose diplomacy with the affected counties always seemed to line up nicely with the desires of Hunter’s clients.
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Exposure of all this is not partisan muckraking. It provides the public with valuable information, with which voters can make decisions about whether the president exercises appropriate judgment in foreign affairs or, worse, whether he is trustworthy. Or whether he covers up for his errant son’s malfeasance to an extent that clouds his decision-making.
If a House inquiry finds convincing grounds to impeach President Biden, then by all means, the House should follow its duty. Either way, though, the work of energetic oversight must continue, not for political reasons but for basic civic hygiene.