OPINION:
When House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called for an impeachment inquiry into President Biden’s various corrupt actions, several reporters called me.
Every one of them began their questions with the assumptions that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Biden and that the inquiry was a purely partisan exercise.
None of them seemed to understand what an impeachment inquiry is. The point of any inquiry is to ask if there might be evidence of crimes large enough to justify impeachment.
The inquiry is a prelude, not an act of impeachment. If sufficient proof is found via the inquiry, the next stage is an impeachment. If a thorough review of the information does not indicate serious wrongdoing, the matter is dropped.
The question at this stage is whether there are enough suspicious facts and knowledgeable witnesses to raise questions that need answering.
Three House committees — Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary, and Ways and Means — have been uncovering information about then-Vice President and now-President Biden’s activities and his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
Chairman James Comer and his Committee on Oversight and Accountability have produced a series of facts and witnesses that more than justify an impeachment inquiry. They provided 22 examples of Mr. Biden’s involvement in business dealings with Hunter and foreign clients (recall that Mr. Biden has repeatedly claimed he had no knowledge of his son’s foreign business deals).
The committee answered skeptics with a solid list of facts. It also provided a substantial amount of detailed testimony.
Here are some key parts of the committee’s report. If anyone asks you why there is an impeachment inquiry, this will equip you with an authoritative and factual answer.
As you read these examples, remember that they concern Hunter Biden’s business dealings involving Russia, China, Ukraine, Romania and Kazakhstan while his father was vice president.
The key questions are: First, whether the then-vice president was actively helping his son make money while in office; and second, did the elder Mr. Biden get significant money for his help.
Since item 22 is a personal text from Hunter to his daughter in which he wrote, “unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary,” it seems to me there is a pretty good case that his father was benefiting directly from his business activities.
One of the inquiry’s goals must be to analyze the bank accounts, credit cards, and layers of Biden family shell companies to determine how much “half” of Hunter’s money was, if it really was going to his father, and in what forms (for example, paying for houses, phones, concealed cash, etc.).
Another inquiry goal must be finding out whether Hunter Biden reimbursed the federal government for the business trips in which he and his associates flew on Air Force Two. If Hunter Biden visited more than 15 countries on the vice presidential plane, how much were taxpayers subsidizing his business development? Who paid for his hotel rooms when he traveled with his father, etc.?
We the American people deserve to know the truth about foreign influence peddling by the then-vice president and his family — and how taxpayer assets were used to enrich the Biden family.
We already know that our sitting president has lied about all this. We will only get the truth if we persist in demanding the facts and connecting the details.
In a 2019 CBSN Boston interview, Mr. Biden said: “There is not a single solitary thing anyone said that was done wrong, I don’t discuss business with my son. … I don’t discuss things with my son or my family because I don’t want to have any knowledge of any, I don’t want to be accused of ‘well, you talked with your son,’ or ‘you talked with your whoever.’ And so, the fact is so everyone has looked at that he did nothing wrong. Zero. Period.”
In a 2019 interview with “60 Minutes,” he said: “I never discussed my business or their business with my sons or daughters. … He did not do a single thing wrong as everybody’s investigated.”
In the second presidential debate on Oct. 22, 2020, moderator Kristen Welker asked Mr. Biden about his son’s work in China and Ukraine. He answered: “Nothing was unethical. … My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China.”
When then-President Donald Trump charged, “Once you became vice president he [Hunter Biden] made a fortune in Ukraine, in China, in Moscow and various other places.”
Mr. Biden clearly answered, “That is not true.”
In each of these cases, we know Mr. Biden was lying. Given the scale of the president’s falsehoods, it is essential that we get the facts.
The impeachment inquiry is going to produce a lot more material. The 22 items being reviewed by the House committees are only the beginning. Clearly, there must be an inquiry, and we must get the facts.
• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.
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