OPINION:
Sen. Lindsey Graham, in a series of tweets, said Congress ought to quit the impeachment madness and take a deeper look at Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings and so forth and so on — and he’s right.
That’s after he called for a Senate investigation into the Bidens and Burisma and whether the money trail of one to the other led to any sort of quid pro quo with Ukraine’s government and so forth and so on — and again, on asking these questions, he’s quite right.
Perception counts.
If the Bidens had “Rs” next to their names, not “Ds,” the media would be all over this matter.
As it is, Graham’s call puts him out on a limb, where few others have perched.
“I think what’s going on in the House of Representatives on impeachment is a joke,” he tweeted. “It’s a one-sided process that lacks due process. We’re not going to allow Democrats in the House to destroy President @realDonaldTrump in a sham process.”
Sham is right. Impeachment is the sham that’s been perpetrated on the American people since pre-inauguration days. The latest attempt is Trump’s Ukraine telephone call — and that, even as eye-raising ethical questions about the Bidens have slapped in the background.
“I love Joe Biden as a person,” Graham continued on Twitter, “but we are not going to give a pass to what is obviously a conflict of interest. I believe Hunter Biden’s association on the Burisma board doesn’t pass the smell test. If a Republican was in the same position, they’d certainly be investigated!”
Absolutely.
If the son of a seated Republican vice president were appointed to the board of a business plagued by accusations of scandal and corruption, and run by an individual under hefty investigation for alleged financial malfeasance — and if this son were paid $50,000 per month by this business, despite having no, zero, zilch expertise in the activities in which this business is engaged — you better believe Democrats would be all over it. You better believe CNN would be wondering if this son’s appointment was simply a means for the business owners to obtain political favors from the son’s vice presidential father.
You better believe the perceived conflict of interest would turn to calls for prosecution and imprisonment — even before any proof of prosecutorial offense were proffered, even before any imprisonable crime had been committed.
Instead, America gets “Impeach Trump” ad nauseam, absent anything but flights of politically charged fancies of the left.
Instead, America is told, on Ukraine, look away from the Bidens; look toward Trump.
As Graham tweeted: “After [Robert] Mueller it should have been OVER. The whole Ukraine issue, particularly the way the House of Representatives is doing it, is a joke. We’re less than a year away from the 2020 election. If you don’t like Trump — vote against him. Let the American people decide!”
It’s the anti-Trumping members of the media who are to blame for this double standard.
Look at how it works: In a media gaggle in Charleston, South Carolina, Graham told reporters: “If Hunter Biden, who was a board member for Burisma, used his political influence to stop the investigation of the gas company [Burisma] in the Ukraine where he received $50,000 a month, what role did the vice president [Joe Biden] play, if any?”
And how did the press report this remark?
McClatchy, at the end of the quote, added this explainer: “… Graham said, who offered no evidence the Bidens had done anything wrong …”
It’s unfortunate press members don’t think to add that same tag line when it comes to Trump and impeachment, or Trump and Russia, or Trump and Ukraine, or Trump and — fill-in-the-blank.
With the Bidens and Burisma, the left and the leftists in the media shrug off perceptions.
With Trump and fill-in-the-blank, the left and the leftists in the media insist that perceptions are proofs of guilt — despite the fact that perception after perception is ultimately shown to be fabricated by anti-Trump factions. (Can you say Steele dossier, for example?)
Graham simply wants an investigation. Graham has simply launched an investigation in the Senate into questions that have plagued for some time — into curiosities and ethical considerations and seeming conflicts of interest that haven’t gone away, despite the left’s insistence of nothing to see here, folks, please go home.
And here’s the thing: If there truly is nothing to see here, folks, please go home — then the left ought to welcome Graham’s questions. The left ought to embrace a Senate investigation.
It could prove the final exoneration the Bidens still so desperately need.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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