Republicans: Hunter Biden Investigation Will Solve Nation’s Economic Woes
Republican Representatives Jim Jordan and James Comer held a press conference on Thursday to tell the world their plans for the coming session of Congress.
To hear Republicans speak about the state of the nation during the run up to the midterm elections, you’d think crime, inflation, and immigration would be at the heart of their solutions package. Or perhaps an endorsement of Sen. Rick Scott’s 12 point plan for America, putting theocrats in the driver's seat on social issues and sunsetting Social Security and Medicare.
You’d be wrong on all of the above. The number one issue for these Republicans will be an investigation into the activities of Hunter Biden, son of the current president, recovering drug addict, and former owner of a laptop allegedly jam packed with the truth about various conspiracies.
Here’s Walter Einenkel:
After talking about how Hunter Biden was a drug addict who may or may not have paid sex workers for sex, Comer explained that Hunter Biden may have also used his name to try and get lucrative jobs.
It’s hard to write about this without delving into whataboutism concerning the Trump family, but I promise I’ll stay focused on This Very Important Issue.
From Politico:
Comer and others haven’t been shy about their efforts being a probe in search of a problem — a hunt for a smoking gun that would provide a still-unproven direct link between Joe Biden’s decisions as vice president or president and his son’s business dealings. But the public rollout of those plans, one day after Republicans officially won the House in the midterm elections, shows where a GOP facing partisan gridlock will focus much of its attention for the next two years.
“I want to be clear: This is an investigation of Joe Biden, and that’s where the committee will focus in the next Congress. … We’re trying to stay focused on: ‘Was Joe Biden directly involved with Hunter Biden’s business deals’ and ‘was he compromised,’” Comer said on Thursday.
It’s a far cry from the days of the Benghazi select committee, when McCarthy earned the public’s ire for depicting an inquiry into an attack on U.S. officials in Libya as a way to wound Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton. And it’s revisiting some well-trodden ground: a pair of Senate Republicans released a report on Hunter Biden and other family members weeks before the 2020 election, when Joe Biden was the party’s nominee.
These congressional sleuths should probably begin their investigation by reading the 87-page report released jointly by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees in September 2020 concerning Hunter Biden’s activities.
From the New York Times:
Though their scope was ultimately broader, Republicans set out to scrutinize a specific claim raised by Mr. Trump: that Mr. Biden had corruptly pushed for the ouster of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, who had been investigating Burisma, as a favor to his son. Mr. Trump’s pursuit of that charge, including the pressure he tried to put on Ukraine’s leader to look into it, is what prompted his impeachment last year.
The senators turned up no evidence to support it. Current and former government officials testified that the decision to remove the prosecutor had not been merely Mr. Biden’s position, but that of most Western nations determined through a rigorous policy process.
The House Republicans released their own 31 page report this week, based on the premise that the Biden family had profited for years by selling access and a gigantic media coverup on reporting about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The evidence for their continuing investigation is a New York Post story other media outlets rejected because the sourcing couldn’t be verified and an FBI warning about Russian misinformation being released in an attempt to influence the 2020 elections. There are also supposedly whistleblowers willing to step forward.
From the Washington Post:
When the New York Post first reported in October 2020 that it had obtained the contents of a laptop computer allegedly owned by Joe Biden’s son Hunter, there was an immediate roadblock faced by any other news outlet that hoped to corroborate the reporting, as many did: The newspaper wasn’t sharing what it obtained.
The national story quickly centered on the dubious provenance of the material, particularly given how, four years before, WikiLeaks had begun releasing material stolen by Russian hackers at about the same point in the presidential contest. But for news outlets interested in actually evaluating what the New York Post claimed it had, neither the paper nor its source for the material, President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, were willing to share. (Giuliani famously told the New York Times that he was hoping to avoid having the material vetted before being published.) It therefore seemed wise to treat the New York Post’s claims with some skepticism.
Now, a new voice has joined those raising questions about the validity of the material that’s alleged to have been on Hunter Biden’s laptop: the guy who recovered that data in the first place.
A real problem concerning the contents of the laptop has to do with the fact that everybody and their mother on the right had access to the hard drive, and there is clear evidence showing data was added along the way.
Experts retained by the Washington Post determined that many of the emails were authentic, but also pointed to three new folders created on the drive a full year after it was dropped off for repairs. Dated Sept. 1 and 2, 2020, they bore the names “Desktop Documents,” “Biden Burisma” and “Hunter. Burisma Documents.”
An additional three folders were created in October 2020, labeled “Mail,” “Salacious Pics Package” and “Big Guy File.”
It should be noted that the FBI has possessed a copy of the hard drive for two years. Media accounts indicate there’s investigation-worthy stuff pointing to non-payment of taxes by Hunter Biden, although no charges have been filed.
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There will be other investigations instigated in the hopes of impeaching a host of administration officials. CNN has run with a story concerning administration preparations for inquiries should the GOP take control of the House.
The point, people familiar with the effort said, has been to ensure agencies are ready for the coming investigative onslaught and to coordinate an administration-wide approach.
While President Joe Biden and Democrats campaigned to preserve their congressional majorities, a small team of attorneys, communications strategists and legislative specialists have spent the past few months holed up in Washington preparing for the alternative, two administration officials said.
The preparations, largely run out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House, are among the earliest and most comprehensive by any administration ahead of a midterm election and highlight how far-reaching and aggressive Republican investigations are expected to be.
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Republicans will be like car chasing dog that actually caught the vehicle for the next two years when it comes to their control of the “House.” Their eventual 3 or 4 vote majority will enable the party’s far out fringe, and we should get used to a livestream of wingnuttia through November 2024.
The GOP investigations will provide red meat for the MAGA crowd, but there’s increasing evidence that a growing number of Americans have become disinterested in the right’s “gotcha” schemes.
I can safely guess about the biggest takeaway from the Republican Hunter Biden inquiries:
his dad still loves him more than Donald Trump loves Don Jr.
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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com