OPINION:
At the House Democrats’ 2019 impeachment inquiry into then-President Donald Trump, Rep. Adam Schiff blocked Republicans from calling witnesses and obtaining documents that could have told today’s unfolding, seedy story of the Biden family in Ukraine.
Mr. Schiff, the California Democrat who proudly championed the 2016 anti-Trump hoax dossier, kept the Biden family safe so that Joe could run for president untainted by scandal.
House Democrats subsequently voted to impeach Mr. Trump because of a July 25, 2019, phone call he conducted with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He asked Mr. Zelenskyy to look into what the Biden duo, former Vice President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden, were up to in Kyiv’s corrupt environment.
But Mr. Schiff kept Republicans from telling the real story: Ukraine was a Biden scandal, not a Trump one. We now know that Mr. Trump had a good reason to ask Mr. Zelenskyy what the Biden family was up to.
Mr. Biden was America’s all-powerful point man in Kyiv when Hunter, in 2014, quickly landed a seat worth millions on the board of directors of Burisma Holdings. It’s a natural gas company owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, an oligarch tied to Moscow and viewed as corrupt by Washington.
A more thorough impeachment investigation in 2019 could have done a deep dive into the Bidens and Mr. Zlochevsky.
Today we know so much more about what the three were actually doing in Ukraine, stuff that could have come in so handy to impeachment committee Republicans had they been allowed to call specific witnesses.
Two big post-impeachment disclosures: First, in October 2020, as Election Day neared, the New York Post broke a blockbuster: the Hunter Biden laptop.
Abandoned by Hunter at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware, the Apple device told the sordid tale of the Biden family collecting foreign cash from corrupt figures based on former Vice President Biden’s travels to China, Ukraine and other ripe destinations.
Unpeeled, the laptop exposed emails that told exactly why Mr. Zlochevskyy handed Hunter the plum job: His emissary, Vadym Pozharsky, told Hunter as he took his board seat in May 2014 that he wanted him to use his influence to stop a state investigation of Burisma and Mr. Zlochevsky.
How could Hunter achieve such a daunting task as a mere corporate board member ensconced in Washington? Answer: His dad, the vice president. Once out of office, Mr. Biden bragged at a public event in Washington that he had manipulated the firing of prosecutor Viktor Shokin by threatening to cut $1 billion in American aid.
In an email between Hunter and business partner Devon Archer, who also somehow won a board seat, the two talked of collecting nearly $5 million from Burisma. In quotation marks, Hunter called it “pay.”
Then-Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican, knew none of this when he defended Mr. Trump in 2019. Mr. Schiff made sure of that.
The second bombshell: Post-impeachment, whistleblowers told House Republicans that the FBI owned an internal 2020 FD-1023 that quoted a reliable informant as saying that Mr. Zlochevsky paid a massive bribe to Hunter and Joe to fire Mr. Shokin — more than $10 million in all.
And there’s more. The 1023 refers to a pre-impeachment 2017 FD-1023 in which Mr. Zlochevsky discussed Burisma and Hunter Biden. Why did the FBI not turn over this document to Mr. Nunes?
Sen. Charles Grassley, Iowa Republican, has been a leader in exposing the cash transfers between crooked foreigners and the Biden family. On July 20, he released the 2020 FD-1023.
With the laptop and FD-1023, we now know the 2019 Trump impeachment was another Democratic Party sham.
Republicans say they have exposed Mr. Schiff as a corrupt liar, for which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy kicked him off the House Intelligence Committee once the GOP won the House majority.
But Mr. Schiff was in control in 2019 when he rammed through an impeachment inquiry that muzzled Mr. Nunes.
“Chairman Schiff rejected witnesses identified by Republicans who would inject some semblance of fairness and objectivity,” said a December 2019 staff report signed by Mr. Nunes and two other GOP leaders. “Chairman Schiff denied Republican subpoenas for testimony and documents, violating the Democrats’ own rules to vote down these subpoenas with no notice to Republicans.”
“There is also nothing wrong with asking serious questions about the presence of Vice President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, on the board of directors of Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian company,” added the report, also endorsed by Reps. Jim Jordan and Michael McCaul.
Describing Mr. Schiff’s tactics, the report said:“Despite this evidence, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has prevented Republican Members from fully assessing the role of Hunter Biden on Burisma’s board of directors. Chairman Schiff refused to invite Hunter Biden and Devon Archer to testify during public hearings. Chairman Schiff declined to concur with a Republican subpoena for Hunter Biden to testify in a closed-door deposition. Chairman Schiff declined to concur with a Republican subpoena for documents relating to Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma.”
Concerning the Grassley-released FD-1023, it was composed and filed by the bureau on June 30, 2020, six months after the House impeached Mr. Trump and three months after the Senate acquitted him.
The FBI’s confidential human source met with Burisma’s Zlochevsky in Vienna in 2016. The source quoted the oligarch as saying:
“‘it costs 5 [million] to pay one Biden, and 5 [million] to another Biden.’ CHS noted that at this time, It was unclear to CHS whether these alleged payments were already made.”
For Mr. Trump, the conversation would have been good to know three years later.
But finding all the truth is not how Mr. Schiff operates. In 2017-18, he flacked for the hoax dossier. When it became clear that the dossier was false — a collection of Moscow gossip and direct Kremlin disinformation — Mr. Schiff never relinquished the Russia-Trump conspiracy.
This is today’s Democratic Party. An apology was in order. Instead, they high-fived and went on to the next prank: Ukraine.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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