OPINION:
It is clear after Devon Archer’s detailed July 31 testimony in front of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee that President Biden’s original story simply does not survive the facts.
In fact, his testimony combined with the collapse of the Hunter Biden plea deal in federal court has virtually guaranteed that there will be an expanded impeachment inquiry.
It is important to distinguish between an impeachment inquiry and an actual motion of impeachment. Launching the inquiry allows the House to ask wider-ranging questions and expands the range of investigation powers House Republicans can bring to bear. It may or may not lead to an act of impeachment.
Consider how the testimony has blown holes in the president’s defense that he had nothing to do with Hunter Biden’s business deals and knew nothing about them.
Archer was a close business partner of Hunter Biden’s, and there are several pictures of him with then-Vice President Joe Biden. There is also a generous letter from the then-vice president about how happy he was that Archer and Hunter Biden were working together.
As Archer testified about the details of their working relationship, he proved decisively that candidate and later President Biden has consistently lied to the American people.
As Miranda Devine reported in the New York Post, “No matter how desperately Democrats and their media handmaidens try to spin Archer’s testimony, he has changed the game.”
It is clear that the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma was paying Archer and Hunter Biden $83,000 a month each for access to Hunter’s father.
Then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was investigating corruption involving Burisma. In his testimony, Archer said, “I do believe that, at the end of the day, Burisma wouldn’t have stayed in business so long if Hunter was not on the board.”
By the elder Mr. Biden’s own boasting in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, he flew to Ukraine and threatened the Ukrainian government that he would withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid unless Mr. Shokin was fired. As Mr. Biden put it, he warned them that the money would be cut off if they did not fire Mr. Shokin.
Three months later, Mr. Shokin was gone, and as Archer said, Burisma was saved.
Mr. Archer testified that then-Vice President Biden’s activities and influence spread far beyond Ukraine.
He asserted that Hunter called his father at least 20 times in an effort to impress foreign business people. On several occasions, Hunter put his father on speakerphone so everyone present could see that he offered real access to the second most powerful person in the U.S. government.
As Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to former President George W. Bush, said on “Hannity”:
“If I was pitching clients right now and I said, ‘Hey, before we get going to this meeting, I’ve got George Bush on the line. He just wants to talk to you about the weather. Hey, Mr. President, it’s great to have you here.’ Everybody in that room would go, ‘Oh, he can get the president on the line. Isn’t that something?’
“Everybody knows what that would be. The difference is, no politician I’ve ever worked for would have gotten on that line. It would have been unethical. It was corruption. Joe Biden got on the line more than 20 times. That is corruption.”
It was more than phone calls. The elder Mr. Biden had dinner with Hunter’s foreign business associates on at least two occasions.
He had dinner in Paris with a French energy company and in China with a Chinese investment firm — and of course, he took Hunter with him on Air Force Two.
As House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on “Just the News, No Noise”:
“It’s just unbelievable. When in American history has a vice president ever taken an active role, and demanded that a prosecutor be fired in a foreign country for simply investigating a business that was domiciled in that foreign country? Never. The evidence continues to mount that the real quid pro quo pertaining to Ukraine in Burisma was Joe Biden. … That’s why we’re investigating Joe Biden. We know his family has sold access to him for years. The problem is we could have a president that’s compromised.”
Given all this information, it is no wonder House Speaker Kevin McCarthy indicated that this investigation could turn into an impeachment inquiry.
As the Biden family corruption becomes clearer — and the defenses become more absurd — the Archer testimony will be seen as one of the major breaking points where reality and facts began to undermine a crumbling defense of dishonesty and dissimulation.
This is an important week for American politics.
• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.
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