Sept. 28, 2023 - The Benny Show - Benny Johnson
06:05:08
Participants
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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Republicans releasing a memo overnight outlining the evidence they'll present today at the first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing. | |
| All as the White House writes the whole thing off as a distraction. | ||
| Lucas Tomlinson is in Washington with all the details. | ||
| Good morning, Lucas. | ||
| Good early morning, Carly and Todd. | ||
| In the poker game of life, House Republicans set to show their cards today as the first impeachment inquiry into the president gets underway. | ||
| House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says his investigators have uncovered serious and credible allegations. | ||
| Here's some of them, according to that memo from top GOP committee chairman. | ||
| The Biden family and partners received over $24 million from foreign sources over five years. | ||
| Business deals have intersected with Biden's official duties, and President Biden was not truthful about his ties to family business deals. | ||
| Now, one of the first witnesses to be called to testify today is Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant. | ||
| He says there is a great deal of evidence that has been collected to date by this committee. | ||
| The American people deserve to know the truth. | ||
| The rigor and discipline of a well-planned and executed investigation should not be subverted by political motivations or aspirations. | ||
| It is clear that then Vice President Joe Biden's political power and influence was, quote, the brand that Hunter Biden was selling all over the world. | ||
| Even more alarming, the Biden family foreign influence peddling operation suggests an effort to sway U.S. policy decisions. | ||
| The White House thinks the launch of the impeachment inquiry today is a misdirection play to talk about something else instead of the looming government shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
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I think it's clear that these extreme House Republicans want to distract from their own chaos and inability to govern and keep the government open. | |
| And you see that with just two days ahead of a potential shutdown, trying to distract the public, trying to distract the press with this fake impeachment hearing where they're not going to cover any new ground and they're just going to keep pushing baseless allegations against the president. | ||
| Now, according to a recent Fox News poll, about half the country thinks these impeachment proceedings against the president are legit. | ||
| The other half, bogus. | ||
| And not surprisingly, these numbers are split along party lines, guys. | ||
|
unidentified
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Guys, today is Thursday, September 28th, 2023, Impeachment Day! | |
| House is holding impeachment inquiry hearing right now into Joe Biden. | ||
| Jim Jordan is on the mic. | ||
| Let's cut to Jim Jordan at this very moment. | ||
| Also, Congressman Troy Nels will be joining the show later, along with a lot of other special guests. | ||
| My name is Benny Johnson, and this is The Benny Show. | ||
| Jim Jordan, baby. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
|
unidentified
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Let's go. | |
| Hold up. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hold up. | |
| What were they going to deliver? | ||
| Well, that was in a communication release yesterday as well. | ||
| U.S. officials in Ukraine and in the United States need to express support for Burisma and Nikolai Zelchevsky to the highest-level decision-makers, the president of Ukraine, the president's chief of staff, and the prosecutor general. | ||
| That's what they were going to deliver. | ||
| And were they successful? | ||
| The Interior Minister confirmed that Zolachevsky is no longer wanted. | ||
| We won in less than a year. | ||
| Communications between the folks at Blue Star and Eric Sherwin, who was Hunter Biden's business partner. | ||
| Awesome work. | ||
| Congratulations to you guys. | ||
| Those are the communications. | ||
| That's what they got done. | ||
| And remember, when this happens in October 2016, When the pressure is taken off, the case is dropped against Olichefsky. | ||
| This is the second prosecutor. | ||
| Joe Biden fired the first one. | ||
| The second prosecutor comes in, drops the charges. | ||
| That's exactly what they wanted done. | ||
| And the final step. | ||
| The final step is the Biden Justice Department tries to sweep it all under the rug. | ||
| They slow walk the investigation. | ||
| They let the statute of limitations lapse for the most important years, 14 and 15, the burisma years when all that income's coming in. | ||
| They try to put together this sweetheart deal and get it past the judge. | ||
| And we learned yesterday in the search warrant, examining Hunter Biden's electronic communications, they weren't allowed to ask about political figure one. | ||
| Political figure number one is the big guy, is Joe Biden. | ||
| And they would have gotten away with it all. | ||
| They would have gotten away with it all except for two brave whistleblowers who sat in those seats two months ago and told their story. | ||
| And their story has stood up. | ||
| Two brave whistleblowers and a judge in Delaware who said, we're not going to let this happen. | ||
| That's why we're here today. | ||
| That's why this inquiry is so darn important. | ||
| It's the oldest story in the world, and those are the facts. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman yields back. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Raskin of Maryland for his opening statement. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, thank you. | ||
| Before I give my opening statement, I have a parliamentary inquiry. | ||
| Given that the committee has not been authorized by the full House to conduct an impeachment inquiry, am I correct in assuming that we're obligated to follow the rules of the House, including Section 370 of the rules and manual which prescribe engaging in personalities towards the President? | ||
|
unidentified
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At ease. | |
| Well, considering this is an investigation of Joe Biden, I assume that his name's going to come up. | ||
| Right, but the House has not authorized this as an impeachment inquiry, so we're just operating with the general rules, and I think saying that the President lied is considered engaging in a personality. | ||
| In fact... | ||
| Oh my God. | ||
| Section 370 says accusations that the president has committed a crime or even that the president has done something illegal are unparliamentary. | ||
| And we're operating with the general rules of the House because the House has not authorized... | ||
| The Speaker of the House has authorized the impeachment inquiry. | ||
| It has been authorized. | ||
| The shenanigans are already starting. | ||
| Point of parliamentary inquiry. | ||
| The ranking member... | ||
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unidentified
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Who? | |
| Ms. Ocasio-Cortez? | ||
| I believe changing of the rules must require a vote from the full House of Representatives. | ||
| The chair overrules the point of order. | ||
| While articles of impeachment are not directly before this committee, we are looking into the potential wrongdoing of the president. | ||
| Given the unique nature and subject matter of today's hearing topic... | ||
| These words will not be ruled out of order. | ||
| Thank you for clarifying, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| We obviously have an honest disagreement about that. | ||
| All right, so let's get it straight. | ||
| We're 62 hours away from shutting down the government of the United States of America, and Republicans are launching an impeachment drive based on a long-debunked and discredited lie. | ||
| No foreign enemy has ever been able to shut down the government of the United States, but now mega-Republicans And you think I'm being harsh? | ||
| Here's what some Republicans have had to say over the last week about the actions of the Republicans as they watch up close, quote, GOP colleague from Nebraska, Don Bacon. | ||
| Clown show. | ||
| Foolishness. | ||
| Terribly misguided. | ||
| Stupidity. | ||
| Failure to lead. | ||
| Lunatics. | ||
| Disgraceful. | ||
| New low. | ||
| Pathetic. | ||
| Enabling Chairman Xi. | ||
| People that have serious issues. | ||
| Those folks don't have a plan. | ||
| Show just how broken they are. | ||
| And individuals that just want to burn the whole place down. | ||
| Now if I said any of these things... | ||
| They'd probably take my words down, but these are Republicans talking about Republicans. | ||
| So let's be clear. | ||
| This isn't partisan warfare America's seeing today. | ||
| It is chaotic infighting between Republicans and Republicans. | ||
| It's mega versus extreme mega, as if anybody in the real world could tell the difference between the two. | ||
| What a staggering failure of leadership. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mega versus extreme mega. | |
| fanatical elements of his conference now threatens the well-being of every American. | ||
| Now some people think the members of the GOP caucus aren't interested in anything logical. | ||
| They just want to see the world burn as Alfred Pennyworth put it in the dark night. | ||
| But I I see a method in the madness. | ||
| A week ago, Donald Trump posted a comment saying that a government shutdown, quote, is the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me and other patriots. | ||
| You get it? | ||
| To delay justice, Donald Trump would cut off paychecks to a couple million service members and federal workers and furlough more than a million workers and pay them later for having not worked. | ||
| They would halt food assistance to millions of moms and kids and keep NIH in my district from enrolling any more patients in life and death clinical research trials. | ||
| Trump's convinced that if we shut the government down, his four criminal prosecutions on 91 different felony and misdemeanor charges will be defunded and delayed long enough to keep him from having to go before a jury of his peers before the 2024 election. | ||
| And like flying monkeys on a mission for the Wicked Witch of the West, Trump's followers in the House now carry his messages out to the world, shut down the government. | ||
| But the cult master has another command for his followers, which brings us here today. | ||
| On August 27th, he posted this edict. | ||
| Either impeach the bum or fade into oblivion. | ||
| They did it to us. | ||
| Of course, the standard for impeachment is not whether they did it to us, but whether the president committed treason or bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. | ||
| But the Constitution's irrelevant. | ||
| What counts is what Donald Trump wants. | ||
| As Republican Representative Ken Buck, a Freedom Caucus member, told CNN the other day, President Trump has gone on his social media account and said we should be impeaching President Biden. | ||
| Kevin McCarthy said we have an impeachment inquiry. | ||
| You draw the conclusion, directly or indirectly, this impeachment inquiry was a result of President Trump's pressure. | ||
| So we move from a Trump-ordered government shutdown to a Trump-ordered impeachment process, and yet back in the reality-based world, the majority sits completely empty-handed with no evidence of any presidential wrongdoing, no smoking gun, no gun, no smoke. | ||
| In fact, we have had to slide awkwardly into a House impeachment process without the benefit of the floor vote that Speaker McCarthy insisted was absolutely imperative and necessary when Donald Trump was impeached. | ||
| In fact, they went to the Department of Justice and they got an OLC opinion saying, quote, no committee may undertake the momentous move from legislative oversight to impeachment without the delegation by the full House. | ||
| of such authority OLC opinion, January 19th, 2020. | ||
| And that's why... | ||
| The House voted in the case of Donald Trump, but that's exactly what has not happened here because they don't have the votes because dozens of Republicans recognize what a futile and absurd process this is. | ||
| Now, the title of the hearing is The Basis for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Joseph Biden. | ||
| And yet they present us no basis at all today, even after eight months of investigation. | ||
| They've invited three witnesses to testify. | ||
| Not one of them is an eyewitness to a presidential crime of any kind. | ||
| Not one of them is a direct fact witness about any of the events related to Ukraine and Burisma. | ||
| Not one of them has participated in the eight months of investigation in which our distinguished chairman has publicly boasted that he received 100% of everything he asked for. | ||
| And I quote, Every subpoena that I've signed as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, over the last five months, we've gotten 100% of what we've requested, whether it's with the FBI, with the banks, or with Treasury. | ||
| That means we are the real witnesses here. | ||
| In fact, the committee has received 12,000 pages of bank records. | ||
| Here they are, right in front of us, printed double-sided. | ||
| And not a single page shows a dime. | ||
| We've held hearings and conducted interviews with everybody from Hunter Biden's business partners to a federal agent assigned to that investigation. | ||
| And still, we found no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. | ||
| If the Republicans had a smoking gun or even a dripping water pistol. | ||
| They would be presenting it today, but they've got nothing on Joe Biden. | ||
| All they can do is return to the thoroughly demolished lie that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump launched five years ago. | ||
| The Burisma conspiracy theory, a fairy tale so preposterous that one of its main authors, Lev Parnas, has now disowned and repudiated it. | ||
| This is the theory that Vice President Biden, global anti-corruption groups, and most Western governments targeted Ukraine Prosecutor General Shokin for removal because he was threatening the Burisma Corporation whose board Hunter Biden served on. | ||
| Trump synthesized the lie in his August 27th post about President Biden, saying, look, the guy got bribed, he paid people off, and he wouldn't give $1 billion to Ukraine unless they, quote, Trump's story is the opposite. | ||
| of the truth. | ||
| When Biden was VP, he worked as a key player in the Obama administration and global community's efforts to combat corruption in Ukraine in late 2015 as part of a coordinated global effort. | ||
| Biden called for the removal of Viktor Shokin, a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor general who did nothing about corruption in Ukraine other than to participate in it. | ||
| Rather than assist British authorities who were actually investigating Burisma and its owner, Shokin consistently frustrated their efforts. | ||
| The leadership provided for Biden. | ||
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unidentified
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They're defending Burisma! | |
| Republican senators Ron Johnson, Rob Portman, and Mark Kirk wrote to the Ukrainian president assailing corruption in his country and urging him, quote, to press ahead with urgent reforms to the prosecutor general's office. | ||
| Yet years later, in 2018, as President Trump saw Biden as a strong rival in the 2020 election, he worked with Giuliani to twist all the facts around and to suddenly accuse Biden of corruption. | ||
| in calling for the dismissal of a corrupt prosecutor. | ||
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unidentified
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up. | |
| A few months ago, Chairman Comer and the committee received an insider's account from an extraordinary letter sent to us by Lev Parnas, who was Rudy Giuliani's right-hand man. | ||
| Giuliani and Parnas searched high and low to find anyone who would endorse... | ||
| They're contortions about Biden. | ||
| They're going with the Joe Biden. | ||
| ...infamous phone call that then-President Trump made to Ukrainian President Zelensky, in which Trump threatened to withhold hundreds of billions of dollars in economic, strategic, and military security assistance to Ukraine, unless Zelensky embraced their ridiculous fabrication and falsely advertised to the world that Ukraine was investigating Joe Biden. | ||
| This shakedown became the basis for the first House impeachment of President Trump. | ||
| Giuliani's big lie has been thoroughly debunked by multiple sources. | ||
| As Congressman Buck, a former chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Colorado, and a member of the House Freedom Caucus said, | ||
| quote there is in fact no evidence what did we tell you engaged in investigate that rat burisma that where the joe biden's role in his firing was in any way connected to burisma he continued what's missing despite years of investigation is the smoking gun that connects joe biden to his never do well son's corruptions it's scandalous to use impeachment We lower the volume. | ||
| So, what Raskin is doing here is going back to the first Trump impeachment hoax, saying that Trump did a phone call in order to do a quid pro quo with Zelensky about Joe Biden's bribery scandal, saying that Joe Biden was simply hunting out corruption in Ukraine. | ||
| This is what they're going with. | ||
| Alright, okay. | ||
| Good. | ||
| This is amazing. | ||
| This is amazing. | ||
| I'm so glad they're going down this road. | ||
| This is so much better than... | ||
| There's no direct evidence. | ||
| It's so much better that Joe Biden is a crusader for anti-corruption in Ukraine. | ||
| Oh my God. | ||
| Okay, here we go. | ||
| Final weapon of constitutional self-defense against a president who behaves like a king and violates the public trust by committing treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors equivalent to them. | ||
| It is reserved for extraordinary public offenses like inciting a violent insurrection against the American government and trying to overthrow our presidential election. | ||
| That offense in 2021, whose related crimes have resulted in hundreds of criminal convictions and hundreds more being prosecuted, led to Donald Trump's second impeachment in the House on a massive bipartisan vote of 232 to 197 and a similarly lopsided... | ||
| Bipartisan vote of 57 to 43 in the Senate. | ||
| I wonder how many of my esteemed Republican colleagues here who all voted against impeaching Donald Trump, if they were in the House at that point, can reconcile their votes against impeaching Trump for the grave crime of inciting a violent insurrection against the government with their calls supporting impeachment of Joe Biden for allegedly committing a high crime misdemeanor that has not even been defined yet. | ||
| much less bribery treason you jackass um if this dysfunction caught by the way violent insurrection We must receive the testimony of Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas, the insiders who know the origins of the lie upon which this sham impeachment is based and who work to spread it. | ||
| We know that Mr. Parnas is ready and willing to testify and is a former U.S. Attorney and Mayor. | ||
| Mr. Giuliani will surely agree to enlighten us on everything. | ||
| Pursuant to Clause 2K6 of Rule 11, I move that the committee subpoena Rudy Giuliani and Love Parnas to come and testify in these hearings. | ||
| And I would like to ask for a vote on that or debate as you would please, Mr. Chairman. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Look at all the photographers. | ||
| This will definitely... | ||
| I didn't hear a motion to table. | ||
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unidentified
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Mr. Chairman? | |
| Chair, recognize Mr. Jordan. | ||
| I move to table the motion. | ||
| There's a motion to table Mr. Raskin's motion. | ||
| Is there a second? | ||
| I'd like to ask a recorded vote on that, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| This is on the subpoena of the two key figures, Rudy Giuliani and Love Parnas. | ||
| Key figures for what? | ||
| But in your theory about why President Biden should be impeached. | ||
| I think there's going to be an informative hearing for you, Mr. Askins, because we're going to present evidence. | ||
| What evidence? | ||
| There's no evidence witnesses. | ||
| Well, just sit back and let the American people hear the hearing. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Now, look, you've gone over your time. | ||
| We're going to have a... | ||
| We're going to go by the rules here. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| And I'm glad you brought the box of bank statements. | ||
| If we had a box of all the foreign money the Bidens took, it would have reached to the ceiling. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| So, let's just have... | ||
| No, listen. | ||
| Everybody's going to get five minutes. | ||
| AOC, shut your mouth! | ||
| Everyone's going to get a chance. | ||
| Five minutes. | ||
| I let the ranking member go way over time in his opening statement, but we are going to abide by the five minutes. | ||
| There's a motion to the table. | ||
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unidentified
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There's a motion on the floor. | |
| Roll call. | ||
| Is a non-debatable motion on the floor? | ||
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unidentified
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I want the motion to the table. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| Will the clerk get prepared for the roll call? | ||
| Mr. Raskins made a motion and then Mr. Jordan made a motion to table and was seconded. | ||
| So the vote will now be on the motion to table Mr. Raskin's motion to subpoena Rudy Giuliani. | ||
| And Lev Parnas. | ||
| And Les Parnas. | ||
| Will the clerk take the roll? | ||
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unidentified
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Will the clerk take the roll? | |
| Neither Mr. Giuliani nor Mr. Parnas is in jail now. | ||
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unidentified
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Now! | |
| God, these scumbags. | ||
| Oh, these scumbags. | ||
| So they're already going in with the parliamentary... | ||
| This is the motion to table Mr. Raskin's motion. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Jordan. | |
| Yes. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Jordan votes aye. | |
| Mr. Turner. | ||
| Mr. Gosar. | ||
| Ms. Fox. | ||
| Mr. Grothman. | ||
| Mr. Palmer. | ||
| Mr. Higgins. | ||
| Mr. Sessions. | ||
| Mr. Sessions votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Biggs. | ||
| Mr. Biggs votes aye. | ||
| Ms. Mace. | ||
| Ms. Mace votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Letourner. | ||
| Mr. Letourner votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Fallon. | ||
| Mr. Donalds. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Donald's votes yes. | |
| Mr. Armstrong. | ||
| Mr. Armstrong votes yes. | ||
| Mr. Perry. | ||
| They're trying parliamentary. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Timmons. | |
| They're trying parliamentary. | ||
| Let's go down the audio there. | ||
| They're doing the parliamentary. | ||
| They're trying to scuttle, effectively, the hearing right now. | ||
| By taking control of the hearing and taking control of who the witnesses are, part of the power of the gavel in these hearings is having control over who your witnesses are and who is going to be brought before the hearing. | ||
| This is, of course, why it was so important for Democrats to control the January 6th hearing, right? | ||
| So that they could effectively control the narrative. | ||
| You wouldn't want Jim Jordan and Jim Banks being on your January 6th committee. | ||
| So they controlled even the committee members, which was a step further. | ||
| But nonetheless, this is them trying to effectively bring on someone who the federal government has flipped against Donald Trump or flipped against Rudy Giuliani, a Ukrainian guy. | ||
| And I guess we'll see if they're successful. | ||
| It looks like maybe some of the Republicans weren't in their seats, so they might be successful in this. | ||
| Let's jump in. | ||
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unidentified
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Mr. Gomez. | |
| Mr. Gomez votes no. | ||
| Ms. Brown. | ||
|
unidentified
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Miss Brown votes no. | |
| Miss Stansbury? | ||
| No. | ||
| Miss Stansbury votes no. | ||
| Mr. Garcia? | ||
| No. | ||
| Mr. Garcia votes no. | ||
| Mr. Frost? | ||
| No. | ||
| Mr. Frost votes no. | ||
| Miss Lee? | ||
| No. | ||
| Miss Lee votes no. | ||
| Mr. Kassar? | ||
| No. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Kassar votes no. | |
| Miss Crockett? | ||
|
unidentified
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No. | |
| Miss Crockett votes no. | ||
| Mr. Goldman? | ||
| Nay. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Goldman votes nay. | |
| Democrats voting effectively. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Moskowitz votes no. | |
| Mr. Lee. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Lee votes no. | |
| Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Chairman votes yes. | ||
| Mr. Gosar is not recorded. | ||
| Mr. Gosar votes yes. | ||
| How has Mr. Fallon been recorded? | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Fallon is not recorded. | |
| Mr. Fallon votes yes. | ||
| So they didn't have Republicans in the seats. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hold for one. | |
| Let's see. | ||
| And now James Comer's trying to bring Republicans back so they can vote, and so that this doesn't pass. | ||
|
unidentified
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Regular order, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Chairman, a request for regular order. | ||
| We're seeking regular order, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| We have members en route to vote. | ||
| How is Mr. Palmer recorded? | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Palmer is not yet recorded. | |
| Mr. Palmer votes aye. | ||
| So they're trying tomfoolery and shenanigans already. | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, as Republicans bring in members to vote because they were doing opening statements, we're going to listen to the opening statement. | ||
| We had the opening statement of Jim Jordan on the beginning of the live stream. | ||
| The opening statement of James Comer, I think, is incredibly important. | ||
| And, of course, we will cut back when the rest of the hearing starts after this parliamentary inquiry. | ||
| In January, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee has uncovered a mountain of evidence revealing how Joe Biden abused his public office for his family's financial gain. | ||
| For years, President Biden has lied to the American people about his knowledge of and participation in his family's corrupt business schemes. | ||
| At least ten times, Joe Biden lied to the American people that he never spoke to his family about their business dealings. | ||
| He lied by telling the American people that there was an absolute wall between his official government duties and his personal life. | ||
| Let's be clear. | ||
| There was no wall. | ||
| The door was wide open to those who purchased what a business associate described as the Biden brand. | ||
| Evidence reveals that then-Vice President Joe Biden spoke, dined, and developed relationships with his family's foreign business targets. | ||
| These business targets include foreign oligarchs who sent millions of dollars to his family. | ||
| It also includes a Chinese national who wired a quarter of a million dollars to his son. | ||
| Joe Biden also lied to the American people about his family making money in China. | ||
| He continued to lie about it, even when the House Oversight Committee uncovered bank wires, revealing how the Bidens received millions from Chinese companies with significant ties to Chinese intelligence and the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| Just this week, we uncovered two additional wires sent to Hunter Biden that originated in Beijing from Chinese nationals. | ||
| This happened when Joe Biden was running for president of the United States, and Joe Biden's home is listed as the beneficiary address. | ||
| To date, the House Oversight Committee has uncovered how the Bidens and their associates created over 20 shell companies, most of which were created when Joe Biden was vice president, and raked in over $20 million. | ||
| Between 2014 and 2019. | ||
| We've also identified nine Biden family members who have participated in or benefited from these shady business schemes. | ||
| Now, what were the Bidens selling to make all this money? | ||
| Joe Biden himself. | ||
| Joe Biden is the brand. | ||
| And Joe Biden showed up at least two dozen times with business targets and associates sending signals of access, influence, and power to those prepared to pay for it. | ||
| The American people demand accountability for this culture of corruption. | ||
| They demand to know how these schemes have compromised President Biden and threatened our national security. | ||
| They demand safeguards to be put in place to prevent public officials from selling access to their public office for private gain. | ||
| Under the leadership of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Republicans have now opened an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. | ||
| By opening an impeachment inquiry, our investigation is now focused on whether President Biden engaged in impeachable offenses under the U.S. Constitution. | ||
| It empowers Congress, elected by the people, to continue providing the answers, transparency, and accountability that the American people demand and deserve. | ||
| In recent history, Democrats inflicted much damage on the credibility of congressional investigations by peddling the Russian collusion hoax. | ||
| Under this majority will not pursue such witch hunts based on manufactured allegations, innuendo, and no real evidence. | ||
| Today, the House Oversight Committee will examine over two dozen pieces of evidence revealing Joe Biden's corruption and abuse of public office. | ||
| This includes emails, text messages, bank records, and testimony of Biden business associates. | ||
| We will hear from legal and financial experts about this evidence and crimes that may have been committed as Joe Biden was sold around the world. | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, that was James Comer's opening statement. | ||
| Now Jonathan Turley is making his opening statement after being sworn in. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
|
unidentified
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Another impeachment occurred without any hearings at all. | |
| The shortening intervals between impeachments should be a cause of concern and circumspection for all the members on both sides. | ||
| I want to emphasize what it is that we're here today for. | ||
| This is a question of an impeachment inquiry. | ||
| It is not a vote on articles of impeachment. | ||
| In fact, I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. | ||
| That is something that an inquiry has to establish. | ||
| But I also do believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Biden. | ||
| Having said that, I want to just address three inescapable facts that led me to that conclusion. | ||
| First, President Biden has indeed spoken falsely about these foreign deals. | ||
| The Washington Post and other newspapers have noted that some of his past comments are demonstrably untrue. | ||
| Second, President Biden was the focus of a multi-million dollar influence peddling scheme. | ||
| And then finally... | ||
| President Biden may have benefited from millions of dollars as a part of that scheme. | ||
| Now, those facts should not be taken out of context. | ||
| They're merely allegations, and they should not become presumptions of impeachable conduct. | ||
| Indeed, as I've said in past impeachments, self-dealing is a difficult issue under the impeachment clause. | ||
| The framers sought To avoid ambiguous standards. | ||
| That's one of the reasons that perfidy was rejected. | ||
| While it may not sit well with many, President Biden and other presidents can be dishonest, can even lie to the American people. | ||
| And that would not constitute an impeachable offense. | ||
| Indeed, most presidents have lied to the American people. | ||
| That's why I've not liked any president since James Madison. | ||
| Now, dishonesty alone is not impeachable. | ||
| And so what I lay out in my testimony are what I call guardrails or best practices. | ||
| Those are designed to protect this process. | ||
| Frankly, a number of the things I lay out benefit President Biden, as I say in my testimony. | ||
| Because presidential impeachment shouldn't be a close question. | ||
| It shouldn't be a rush to judgment. | ||
| And you should avoid the type of confirmation bias that can... | ||
| This is, as people say, a political process but it is also a constitutional process. | ||
| Influence peddling is a form of corruption. | ||
| The United States has signed treaties to combat this form of corruption around the world. | ||
| And that is also an inescapable fact. | ||
| We need to find answers as to some of these questions. | ||
| I'm running out of time. | ||
| So I'd like to make one last observation, if I may. | ||
| These are constitutional moments that demand the best from each of us to transcend the politics and passions of our time. | ||
| It calls for something that's difficult. | ||
| It calls for solemnity and clarity for members. | ||
| We have become a nation addicted to rage, and we can fuel that. | ||
| This body is a powerful teacher, as Brandeis said, and you can teach that. | ||
| Or you can teach a respect for this process. | ||
| It begins here and now. | ||
| We can disagree with each other without hating each other. | ||
| These are important issues, and I think they're close issues. | ||
| And I think some of these issues really do gravitate in favor of the president. | ||
| So I would simply say that this is a moment where members and citizens can stand together without prejudging the evidence. | ||
| And I thank you for the honor of appearing before you today. | ||
| Thank you, Professor Charlie. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chairman, ranking member, members of the committee, the chairman invites me to share my thoughts on the conduct of the tax investigation into Hunter Biden. | |
| I make my comments on my own behalf as a private citizen and not on behalf of any person with whom... | ||
| A group with which I might be or have been affiliated. | ||
| When I learned that experienced IRS special agents had felt compelled to report to Congress about the obstruction of their criminal tax investigation, I felt compelled, too, to share my understanding of how things are supposed to work with people who have no reason to appreciate how disturbing the whistleblower's allegations are. | ||
| Without context and a frame of reference, it's difficult to know sometimes how seriously to take things. | ||
| In October 2022 meeting of the Hunter Biden prosecution team, U.S. Attorney Weiss admitted it was not his decision whether to bring charges the investigation had proven should be brought. | ||
| This directly contradicted Attorney General Garland's sworn testimony six months earlier. | ||
| This was the final straw. | ||
| After more than three years of having his investigation stymied, but nonetheless having proven substantial criminal charges, Supervisory Special Agent Shapley realized he had to come forward. | ||
| In fact, he had come forward before, internally within the IRS, using the procedures developed for that purpose. | ||
| He had complained up his chain of command as early as June 2020 about the obstruction he was encountering, but there had been no response. | ||
| Once Shapley had taken steps to come forward to Congress, Special Agent Joseph Ziegler did the same. | ||
| It was not the whistleblower's testimony, however, but what followed that compelled me to write. | ||
| My first Wall Street Journal article was called Throw Hunter Biden's Plea Deal in the Trash. | ||
| Given the substance of the whistleblower's testimony, the plea deal Weiss had worked out with Biden was a miscarriage of justice. | ||
| After that commentary was published, I heard from many people who were similarly appalled at the unfolding injustice. | ||
| Many were knowledgeable and experienced tax professionals. | ||
| Perhaps the most commonly commented-on aspect of the handling of the Hunter Biden matter was that Weiss had permitted the statute of limitations to expire on prosecuting provable offenses. | ||
| This was appalling. | ||
| It is not insignificant that the plea agreement was announced on June 20. Let's review what came just before. | ||
| On August 19, it became known that IRS employees were going to let Congress know about the obstruction they were encountering. | ||
| Later, Shapley and Ziegler sat for hours of sworn and subscribed testimony with the House Ways and Means Committee staff. | ||
| It was expected that the committee would make the testimony public. | ||
| It did, on June 22. U.S. Attorney Weiss, with his June 20 announcement of a plea deal, beat the publication of the whistleblower's testimony by the skin of his teeth. | ||
| Two days. | ||
| If the whistleblowers had not come forward, would Weiss have brought any charges at all? | ||
| My second Wall Street Journal commentary was published on July 25th. | ||
| Great question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was called You'd Go to Prison for What Biden Did. | |
| This lady used to be in charge of the IRS. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And the charges the tax division reportedly had authorized, the plea deal represented serious injustice, not only to law enforcement, but also to people who have been caught up in this system and have suffered the consequences the law provides. | |
| I received a great deal of positive feedback on this commentary too. | ||
| People understand that for laws to be respected, they must be enforced. | ||
| The nature of any investigation is the following of leads. | ||
| That didn't happen here. | ||
| This team was not permitted to search the guest house of Joe Biden's Delaware mansion and Hunter Biden's storage facility in Virginia to interview family members and business associates to examine Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop. | ||
| By November 2019, the FBI had confirmed the devices were Hunter's and the contents were authentic. | ||
| But the Hunter Biden investigation must not be viewed in isolation, rather as part of a broad landscape of corruption. | ||
| Don't forget that a full year after that, in October 2020, FBI officials were telling Twitter that the laptop was Russian disinformation. | ||
| The whistleblowers tell us that the tax investigation of Hunter Biden was an offshoot of an investigation already underway into an online pornography platform. | ||
| That is how investigations develop. | ||
| Agents follow wherever the leads take them, and when they take them in the direction of a new investigation, they open one. | ||
| Question. | ||
| If U.S. Attorney Weiss had been in charge of that pornography investigation, would he have blocked the investigation into Hunter Biden's tax crimes? | ||
| I thank the committee. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Boom! | |
| Pornographic investigation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Raskin, distinguished members of this committee, guests, and my fellow citizens. | |
| Thank you for this opportunity to testify today. | ||
| First, at the outset, let me state unequivocally and in no uncertain terms that I agreed to testify today, not because I have a political agenda or axe to grind, because I do not. | ||
| Rather, I agreed to testify in this proceeding in order to help this committee and the American people gain a better understanding of how frauds are committed, how complex business arrangements, sometimes using limited liability companies, sometimes those being shell companies, are used in frauds. | ||
| And how money is moved by fraudsters to facilitate the conduct of illicit activity. | ||
| Let me be clear. | ||
| I am not prejudging the facts that have emerged to date with regard to the Biden family and associates' businesses and the money they received that had its origins from foreign sources. | ||
| I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud, or any wrongdoing. | ||
| In my opinion, more information needs to be gathered and assessed before I would make such an assessment. | ||
| I'm here today to lend my expertise to answer questions that this committee may have while they advance this investigation and gather more facts about the business dealings surrounding the Biden family and associates' businesses. | ||
| Throughout my 40-year career as a certified public accountant, a forensic accountant, and a certified fraud examiner, I've worked tirelessly to uncover the truth when it comes to cases involving allegations of fraud, corruption, and wrongdoing. | ||
| I've investigated some of the world's largest frauds, including have investigated and testified in the criminal case of the United States Department of Justice on the Bernie Madoff Ponzi, the world's largest Ponzi. | ||
| I've worked on cases like the Enron case, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters election corruption cases, as well as some of the United States' largest cases of tax fraud, to name a few. | ||
| As the age-old proverb goes, where there's smoke, there's fire. | ||
| As a fraud investigator, when I see smoke, I immediately look for the fire. | ||
| The critical question facing the American people today is whether behind the smokescreen clouding the Biden family and associates' businesses, was there or is there a fire? | ||
| And if there was or is a fire, how big is that fire? | ||
| Why were members of the Biden family and close business associates receiving millions of dollars of payments from foreign entities and individuals? | ||
| What services, if any, were being provided? | ||
| What was the substance of the alleged services being provided? | ||
| Was the money being paid for a fair amount commensurate with those services? | ||
| Were political favors being traded and disguised as services? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| These are the questions that as a forensic accountant, I'm asked to answer when I'm hired to investigate allegations of corruption and fraud. | ||
| There's a great deal of evidence that has been collected to date by this committee and others trying to answer these very questions. | ||
| However, much more information is still needed in order to be able to answer these questions and make a final determination as to whether or not the Biden family and its associates'businesses were involved in any improper or illicit activities, and importantly, whether those activities, if any, were connected to President Joe Biden or then Vice President | ||
| In many instances, these complex business arrangements are typically centered around illicit activities and involve moving money around the globe. | ||
| in a manner designed to avoid the detection of the underlying illegal activity as well as the movement of the money tied to that illegal activity. | ||
| Gone are the days, for the most part, when suitcases full of currency or gold bars are exchanged as payment in the conduct of illegal activities. | ||
| Gold bars! | ||
| Today, more sophisticated methods are employed to obfuscate the tool of illegal activities and to hide the movement of money. | ||
| The importance of following the trail of money is a critical component of any fraud investigation. | ||
| The term shell company has its origins in the world of business and finance. | ||
| The term shell, as you would note, implies that the company is like an empty shell, lacking substance or real activity. | ||
| Shell companies typically have no employees, no offices, no real operating businesses. | ||
| They use P.O. boxes for mailing addresses. | ||
| While I will note shell companies can be used for legitimate business activities, more often than not, they're associated with fraudulent activities like tax evasion, money laundering, hiding of assets, and other illicit practices. | ||
| It takes a heavy lift to pull the covers back on these shell companies to determine who the true beneficial owners are, where the money went, and to expose the true sham nature of their existence. | ||
| However, through the use of legal subpoenas and proper investigative methods and a great deal of persistence, fraud investigations can and do expose the identity of the wizards behind these curtains and the extent of their illicit activities. | ||
| In closing, let me underscore the importance of conducting a thorough, independent, and unbiased investigation of the matter before us today before you reach any conclusions. | ||
| The American people deserve to know the truth. | ||
| The rigor and discipline of a well-planned and executed investigation should not be subverted by political motivations or aspirations. | ||
| To do so would critically undermine the integrity of any such investigation and any conclusions. | ||
| Thank you very much, Professor Gearhart. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| That's a good witness. | ||
| The lady's a good witness. | ||
| I appreciate the privilege to be able to appear before you today to talk about the basis for an impeachment inquiry of President Biden. | ||
| I think a good place to begin is with the Federalist Papers. | ||
| And in the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton warned of the dangers of trivializing impeachment through petty partisanship. | ||
| He foresaw that impeachment may, and now I quote, agitate the passions of the whole community and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. | ||
| In many cases, it will connect itself with pre-existing factions and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other. | ||
| And in such cases, there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the relative strength of the parties than by demonstrations of innocence. | ||
| Why does this guy have a pink iPhone? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think what he said may well describe the current set of proceedings. | |
| One thing I might add to all of that is that the framers designed an impeachment process to follow or comply with several safeguards. | ||
| And it's important that we keep these safeguards in mind as these proceedings... | ||
| The first is the necessity for credible evidence of the commission of treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. | ||
| Treason and bribery. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There is not, at least not that I've yet heard, such credible evidence. | |
| Let me give you an example of what I fear is similar to the current proceedings. | ||
| Is arrested for speeding in a car owned by his father. | ||
| And the police go after the father. | ||
| I don't think that's how the law should work. | ||
| I don't think that's how impeachment should work. | ||
| This is the Democrat witness. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I respect members of this committee enormously. | |
| Believe me, I'm just a law professor and citizen. | ||
| And I come here with great awe when I speak to an important body like this. | ||
| But I listened to Congressman Jordan, whom I respect a great deal, when he said there are four facts. | ||
| Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma. | ||
| Hunter Biden was not qualified. | ||
| So far, by the way, nothing about President Biden. | ||
| Third, there were executives who asked Hunter Biden for help. | ||
| Again, not yet any proof about any kind of complicity of President Biden. | ||
| And lastly, Joe Biden gave a speech. | ||
| If that's what exists, As a basis for this inquiry, it is not sufficient. | ||
| I say that with all respect, and I think that that is part of the problem, I think, and many Americans think, may exist with respect to these proceedings. | ||
| A second safeguard is the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause. | ||
| It requires fundamental fairness, and I think in these proceedings... | ||
| Something has happened to President Biden that was said to have happened to President Trump in 2019. | ||
| And that is the burden has flipped to President Biden to prove his innocence. | ||
| Any further investigation is being done to ensure that Mr. Biden has to prove his innocence rather than the committee being able to connect the dots in a convincing and persuasive way. | ||
| It's not me you have to persuade. | ||
| It's the American people whose trust. | ||
| You deserve and whose trust you have to maintain. | ||
| A third principle is judicial review. | ||
| And here I would just remind the committee about the Supreme Court's decision in Trump versus Mazars. | ||
| The court said about this committee that, in fact, it has to conduct an investigation for a legitimate purpose. | ||
| A fishing expedition is not a legitimate purpose. | ||
| Moreover, the court in Trump versus Mazars... | ||
| said that it is not a legitimate purpose for the House or House Committee to be conducting the function of law enforcement. | ||
| And I heard many references here to criminal misbehavior, to whether or not somebody should be thrown in jail, criticisms of a prosecutor, Mr. Weiss. | ||
| That sounds to me like an attempt to really substitute for the proper legitimate proceedings of the House. | ||
| Two other safeguards real quickly. | ||
| One is that these proceedings should be based on principle, not partisanship. | ||
| And I fear that what we're hearing today, which can be- I remember when you impeached Trump for a phone call. | ||
| Remember that? | ||
| And accusations made against Mr. Biden as far back as then are really driven by partisan animus more than they are by principle. | ||
| And a final safeguard is for the House, the full House, to authorize an impeachment inquiry. | ||
| That does not come from me. | ||
| That comes from Speaker McCarthy. | ||
| Oh, really? | ||
| Did you support Trump's impeachment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He said there should be the full House's approval. | |
| It also comes from Mr. Trump's Justice Department, who said a committee must be authorized by the full House. | ||
| That has not happened here. | ||
| My concern is with the Constitution. | ||
| That's what my devotion is to. | ||
| And I hope all of us understand that there's nothing more serious than honoring our Constitution and following the design the framers gave us. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Gentlemen, time has expired. | ||
| Shut up. | ||
| I do want to state the fact in 2019, the D.C. District Court judge ruled a vote of the full house was not required to commence an impeachment inquiry. | ||
| Now we're going to begin the question and answer phase. | ||
| We have 47 members here today that are going to ask questions, so we're going to... | ||
| Abide by the five minutes. | ||
| I will begin, followed by Ranking Member Raskins. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| Let's go, baby. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| Another bank subpoena targeting specific wires originating from Beijing. | ||
| Most of our bank subpoenas have been for Biden Family Associates accounts, resulting in thousands of pages of bank records. | ||
| We've identified these bank accounts based on suspicious activity reports filed with the Treasury Department after being flagged by the banks. | ||
| The bank records obtained this week show that on August 2, 2019, Jonathan Lee and Ms. Tang Ling in Beijing sent Hunter Biden $250,000, listing Joe Biden's home address in Wilmington, Delaware. | ||
| The Wire stated it was for a personal investment. | ||
| A second wire showed that on July 26, 2019, Ms. Wang Shin sent $10,000 listing Joe Biden's home address in Willington, Delaware. | ||
| The 10,000 wire said it was a loan to beneficiary. | ||
| Now, let's talk about the $250,000 personal investment. | ||
| Sure looks like Jonathan Lee was making a substantial investment in the Bidens months after Joe Biden announced. | ||
| His run for the presidency in April 2019. | ||
| Now, who is Jonathan Lee? | ||
| During Devin Archer's interview with the Oversight Committee, he explained how Vice President Biden developed a relationship with Jonathan Lee. | ||
| Vice President Biden had coffee with Jonathan Lee in Beijing. | ||
| He talked with him on the phone and even wrote a college recommendation letter for Mr. Lee's children. | ||
| He's coming. | ||
| Even met with Jonathan Lee after flying on Air Force Two to Beijing with Joe Biden. | ||
| The Beijing Bidens cultivated a relationship with Jonathan Lee and other Chinese nationalists for one reason and one reason over. | ||
| Come on! | ||
| To access their wealth. | ||
| As we all know, the Bidens had nothing to sell except the brand, which was Joe Biden. | ||
| Hunter Biden sold the brand well, making the Biden family millions from China and elsewhere. | ||
| While Joe Biden was vice president, Hunter Biden became an investor in a Chinese investment fund with Jonathan Lee and owned a percentage of BHA partners through one of his many LLCs. | ||
| This was a political problem for his dad, the big guy who was running for president. | ||
| In October 2019, two months after the Beijing wires, Hunter Biden's lawyer claimed he served only as a member of the board of directors in an unpaid Now, these wire statements are very concerning. | ||
| Biden's defenders justification for the money isn't consistent with what we know from the suspicious activity reports from Treasury. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, I'm very skeptical of Abby Lowell's statement that the quarter million dollar payment from Jonathan Lee and another woman was a loan Because the wire states it was a personal investment. | ||
| We've also reviewed documents at Treasury that don't support Mr. Lowell's theory. | ||
| In your experience, are international loans of this amount supported by documentation such as loan terms, interest rates, and repayment schedule? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Mr. Chairman. | |
| They typically would be. | ||
| You would see that. | ||
| You would see documents setting forth the interest rates, terms of repayments, all of those. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| So would it be important? | ||
| To review Hunter Biden's bank records and see if Hunter Biden paid back the money to Jonathan Lee or if he sent the money to someone else, I don't know, using a cashier's check, for example. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, as somebody mentioned earlier, it's very important to follow the money. | |
| Absolutely. | ||
| And that's very important in this situation. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Professor Turley, we all know what this payment's really for. | ||
| It's for influence-peddling and selling the Biden brand. | ||
| By the date, we've shown that the Biden family and their companies received more than $15 million without providing any known legitimate services between 2014 and 2019. | ||
| If you include the business associates and their companies, they've received over $24 million. | ||
| Based on evidence we've developed so far, what are some of the potential laws we should be analyzing during our impeachment inquiry? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I actually lay out what are the most obvious potential articles of impeachment without saying that those have been established, but the ones that I recommend for the committee to focus on. | ||
| And one of the things I recommend is that the committee actually start by looking at potential crimes, because I've said that in the past two... | ||
| That it's an important thing to front load criminal acts for the reasons I laid out. | ||
| It gives you a very high standard for impeachment, quite frankly, higher than is binding. | ||
| I said in the last two impeachments, you can't impeach for non-criminal conduct. | ||
| So I suggest starting there. | ||
| But as I talk about in my testimony, bribery, obstruction, conspiracy, abuse of power. | ||
| Those have all been raised in past impeachments. | ||
| Abuse of power is the article that is very, very common. | ||
| It tends to be a catch-all, and it is the one that I've always been a little bit uncomfortable with. | ||
| It's why I suggest you end there rather than start there, because that's the article that brings in a lot of non-criminal conduct. | ||
| And frankly, I think that you need to focus as much as you can on the evidence and whether you can establish these connections. | ||
| Very good. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Mr. Raskin to Maryland for five minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Professor Gerhardt, has there ever been an impeachment process in the middle of a government shutdown? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Ratskin! | ||
| Why did the Office of Legal Counsel opine that there must be a vote of the full House before a committee launches into an impeachment investigation? | ||
| Why did Speaker McCarthy insist on it and in fact say that there would be one in this case? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think the Office of Legal Counsel said that, at least in part. | |
| Look at this guy. | ||
| You can always tell a libs. | ||
| It is, again, just about the most serious thing any House committee ever undertakes. | ||
| Look at his hands. | ||
| Look at his hands. | ||
| This is the Democrat witness, by the way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
basis of just let's say the party membership is to ensure that the full house is behind the impeachment inquiry. | |
| A dozen of our colleagues on the Republican side have already called for impeachment. | ||
| I'm struck by the fact that of the four expert witnesses brought together today, not a single one of them argued that a sufficient quantum of evidence exists today to justify the impeachment of President Biden. | ||
| Is there any precedent in our country for launching An impeachment inquiry absent evidence of wrongdoing by the president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Absent evidence? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would just point out that Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton and President Trump in 2019, the full House authorized those impeachment inquiries. | |
| That's not true! | ||
| That's false! | ||
| That's false! | ||
| That's probably false! | ||
| false many times over by a wide array of respected sources. | ||
| There is simply no merit to investigating this matter any further. | ||
| And he says, please abandon this effort to investigate the Bidens, which is nothing more than a wild goose chase. | ||
| Rudy Giuliani's right-hand man gallivanting all over the world to try to put together a case back in 2019 that Joe Biden had done something wrong. | ||
| Do you agree that given that the evidence we've looked at over the eight months comes down to this discredited Burisma conspiracy theory, we should hear from those responsible for concocting the story in the first case? | ||
| In the first place, specifically Lev Parnas and Rudy Giuliani? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| What did you think about the fact that the very first activity in its impeachment investigation was to reject the idea of subpoenaing Lev Parnas and Rudy Giuliani, who are at the heart of the story that's the basis for impeachment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think if there's going to be an investigation into the president, all the evidence, that is to say all the participants, anyone that has knowledge. | |
| We have lots of colleagues on this committee and off the committee who've called for the impeachment of Joe Biden, who also voted against impeaching Donald Trump for inciting a violent insurrection against the union. | ||
| And hundreds of people have gone to jail in subsidiary acts under the umbrella of that insurrectionary process. | ||
| Now, can you... | ||
| Come up with a theory that it would allow someone to say, I am going to vote to impeach Joe Biden. | ||
| Donald Trump is ever in charge of that. | ||
| Donald Trump was found innocent of that. | ||
| Jack Wagon. | ||
| But I will oppose and vote against the impeachment of Donald Trump for inciting a violent insurrection against the union. | ||
| What kind of sore does he have on his lip? | ||
| Concurrent bipartisan majorities voted for in the House. | ||
| Why do all these guys have like open sores on their faces? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Law professor. | |
| One of the things I suggest to my students. | ||
| Boy, you look so soft. | ||
| You look like a Pixar character. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In terms of the constitutionality of any governmental action is to take the names out. | |
| Switch the names or switch the political parties. | ||
| So if Joe Biden had incited a violent insurrection against the union and said, you go and fight and fight like hell, and if you don't, you won't have a country anymore. | ||
| Would you consider that in the ensuing mayhem and chaos to be an impeachable event? | ||
| Are you fighting? | ||
| To your mind, have you seen any evidence that Joe Biden has done anything remotely comparable to what Donald Trump did, which earned him his impeachment in the bipartisan House? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have not. | |
| With all due respect, I heard the phrase Biden family many, many times. | ||
| But that's... | ||
| I don't know who the Biden family is. | ||
| I don't know who's being referenced when people talk about the Biden family. | ||
| Thank you, Professor Gearhart. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move for unanimous consent to introduce Lev Parnas' July 18, 2023 letter to you and to me and the rest of the committee into the official record of this proceeding. | ||
| Without objection to order, the chair now recognizes the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith, from Missouri for five minutes. | ||
| Jason Smith has been good. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Jamie Raskin has herpes, obviously. | ||
| It's a pleasure to be here. | ||
| Yesterday we had a committee release over 700 pages of documents that came from the two IRS whistleblowers. | ||
| Based on the last oversight hearing when they presented before this committee, where members, both Republican and Democrat, asked for additional information, and they provided it and we brought it forward. | ||
| What was interesting is the other side of the aisle actually mentioned Trump a whole lot more than they ever mentioned Biden. | ||
| And it's happening over here, too. | ||
| So I think it's kind of consistent, both in the Ways and Means Committee. | ||
| And in the Oversight Committee. | ||
| But Ms. Connor, my question is, is yesterday the Ways and Means Committee voted to release additional information provided, like I said, by Gary Shapley and Mr. Ziegler. | ||
| One of the documents shows that Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Wolf ordered investigators Yes, it's huge. | ||
| We know that over $2 million of Hunter Biden's tax liabilities were paid off by a big Democrat party donor and Hollywood lawyer who's named Kevin Morris. | ||
| James Biden, the president's brother, told investigators he did not know. | ||
| How Hunter Biden even knew this individual, but was later asked to thank him for the payment, quote, on behalf of the family. | ||
| The Biden family. | ||
| The family. | ||
| So how would such payments that essentially pushed under the rug the president's son's tax problems, at least for one year, be considered a campaign finance violation? | ||
| On part of the Biden campaign. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for the question. | |
| I have no idea. | ||
| I thought you were going to ask me, why would Leslie Wolf say, don't look into that? | ||
| And I think the answer to that probably is that if it's a campaign contribution, then it implicates political person number one. | ||
| And that apparently is a big barrier that had been created throughout this entire investigation. | ||
| Because it's a mafia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And as far as it being a campaign contribution, that $2 million actually was intended to satisfy the liabilities for two years of Hunter Biden's late-filed and unpaid taxes. | |
| Is it unusual for an assistant prosecutor to say, don't... | ||
| Don't look at this individual. | ||
| This person's off limits. | ||
|
unidentified
|
As I mentioned in my opening statement, that is how investigations develop. | |
| The agent's father leads wherever they take them. | ||
| And in this case, a legitimate investigation was being done of money that was being paid. | ||
| And for the assistant U.S. attorney who is orchestrating the investigation to say, don't look at that anymore. | ||
| I think the reason is related to another instruction of hers that she didn't want to get public integrity involved. | ||
| And that tells us that she was looking beyond Hunter Biden and into a person whose activities would be subject to public integrity at Sue. | ||
| One thing that I want to ask, since you work tax division for DOJ, if Kevin Morris gave a gift of $2 million to help pay off Hunter Biden's debts, who has to report that on their taxes? | ||
| Does Mr. Morris have to report it, or does Hunter Biden? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, as I understand it, the parties are claiming that it's a loan and that Hunter Biden will pay it back between 2025 and 2027. | |
| Would that have to be reported on any tax records? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If it's a loan, no. | |
| But I haven't seen any of the documentation of that loan. | ||
| And that is when I'm sure Mr. Dubinsky can tell you that calling something a loan is one way to claim that it's not taxable income. | ||
| So one quick question. | ||
| We uncovered yesterday that the Biden family and associates received over $20 million from 23 different countries that they had business ties to or communications with. | ||
| And they also had over 20 shell LLCs where they would transfer money in and out. | ||
| If you were still sitting in your office in DOJ's tax division, would this web of entities and activities... | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would make sure that my prosecutors were concerned about it. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Chair, I recognize Ms. Norton from the District of Columbia. | ||
| So you have a non-voting member? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| These are fake members of Congress. | ||
| Gerhard, the District of Columbia can't vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm with us today in your testimony. | |
| They bring in these kamikaze... | ||
|
unidentified
|
Alexander Hamilton... | |
| Her face is covered by the government. | ||
| Shut up, I bet. | ||
| Let me ask you, Mr. Gerhardt, do you think that initiating an impeachment inquiry against President Biden without any evidence of wrongdoing by the president... | ||
| Oh man, they're not sending their best. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In fact, I think one thing to keep in mind about a hearing like this or anything that calls itself an impeachment inquiry is the critical importance of building public trust. | |
| And that gets built in part on the basis of credible evidence. | ||
| You doughy slob. | ||
| Look at this doughy slob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What is the risk to our constitution and even for the rule of law if impeachments are initiated without any evidence of wrongdoing by a president? | |
| They trivialize impeachment, they trivialize the constitution, and they ride roughshod over the rule of law. | ||
| Nothing good comes from... | ||
| Professor Gerhard, do you believe that initiating an impeachment inquiry without any evidence of wrongdoing by president is consistent with the view that impeachment is a grave and solemn duty? | ||
| Persever. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Compeachment is a grave and solid duty, all the more reason why all evidence For example, relating to Burisma, it ought to be heard and considered. | |
| That would actually add credibility to what the committee is doing. | ||
| I would be remiss if I did not add that it is incredible that we are holding this sham hearing two days before the government will shut down. | ||
| Instead of this hearing, we could be discussing how to fund the government. | ||
| Or we could discuss my bill to exempt from federal government shutdowns and federal and independent agencies that I exclusively or primarily federally funded but have jurisdiction over local D.C. civil and criminal justice matters. | ||
| Or we could be discussing how we are going to provide back pay to federal contract workers if Republicans unfortunately do push us into a shutdown. | ||
| Instead, we are holding this sham hearing. | ||
| I yield the remainder of my time to Mr. Raskin. | ||
| Thank you kindly, Ms. Norton, for that. | ||
| Mr. Comer referred to a 2019 wire to Hunter Biden while President Biden was not in office. | ||
| He was a private citizen, so of course was Hunter Biden. | ||
| Hunter Biden has never held public office. | ||
| Mr. Smith referenced a DOJ email from 2020. | ||
| During the Trump administration. | ||
| So, Professor Gerhart, what do you make of the idea of impeaching a president while he's in office for something that his son did or may have received when the president wasn't in office? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's not consistent with the American legal system. | |
| Just imagine if the names are switched. | ||
| Just imagine if this is Jared Kushner, one of the President Trump's sons. | ||
| Mr. Smith talked about $20 million that he thought Hunter Biden had received and put in the names of different family members. | ||
| I think The Washington Post has debunked that as recently as this weekend, saying it was like $8 or $9 million. | ||
| But let's say it were $20 million. | ||
| That's 1% of the $2 billion that was brought back by Jared Kushner from Saudi Arabia to a company that Jared Kushner created the day after the Trump administration ended. | ||
| But assuming there were no other evidence, would it be fair to attribute that $2 billion that Jared Kushner pocketed with the $25 million management fee every year that Jared Kushner pocketed? | ||
| Would it be fair to attribute all of that to Donald Trump because it's his son-in-law? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, not without any evidence actually showing the president knew it. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Or approved it. | ||
| Because the principle of American law is that people are responsible for their own conduct and not the conduct of their adult children. | ||
| Is that right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's correct. | |
| Thank you to the gentlelady for yielding, and I yield back. | ||
| Chair now recognizes the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Jordan from Ohio. | ||
| Hell yeah, let's go, baby. | ||
| It wasn't just a speech. | ||
| He leveraged $1 billion of American tax money, and he did so at a time. | ||
| When our government was supportive of the prosecutor. | ||
| Here's what our government said. | ||
| The Assistant Secretary of State, we've been impressed with the ambitious reform and anti-corruption agenda of your government written to the prosecutor general who Joe Biden leverages our money to get fired. | ||
| The United States fully supports your efforts to fight corruption, she further wrote. | ||
| The Interagency Policy Committee said this on October 1st, 2015. | ||
| The IPC recommends moving forward with a third loan guarantee to Ukraine in the near term. | ||
| And even after Joe Biden gives the speech on December 9th, the European Commission said their report said the anti-corruption benchmark is deemed to have been achieved for Ukraine. | ||
| But the most telling evidence is what his business partner said. | ||
| Devin Archer, when we deposed him under oath just two months ago, said this. | ||
| Here's the question. | ||
| The request was help from the United States government to deal with the pressure they were under from their prosecutor. | ||
| You know what Mr. Archer's response was? | ||
| That's correct. | ||
| Next question. | ||
| What did Hunter Biden do after he was given that request? | ||
| He called his dad. | ||
| That's what we're investigating. | ||
| That's one of the three things Professor Turley talked about, the influence-peddling scheme. | ||
| I want to go to those three things, Professor Turley. | ||
| False statements, influence-peddling scheme, and Joe Biden might have benefited. | ||
| Let's do the third one first. | ||
| Can a benefit to your family be a benefit to you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is. | |
| There's been repeated statements that you need to show that President Biden accepted direct money in order for this to constitute a benefit, even under... | ||
| Under criminal cases that deal with bribery, extortion, the Hobbs Act, the courts actually have rejected that. | ||
| They've said that money going to family members is in fact a benefit. | ||
| And I don't really see any legal basis for that. | ||
| Obviously, the strongest case is if you have a direct payment. | ||
| But this idea that you can have millions going to a politician's family and that's not a benefit, I think is pretty fallacious. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| How about the false claims thing? | ||
| In your written testimony, you said, to the extent that the president has used the White House, I think this goes, this is a little broader. | ||
| To the extent the president used the White House staff to maintain false claims or resist disclosures, it can fit into the type of Nixonian abuse of power model. | ||
| We know all kinds of false statements have been made by the White House. | ||
| Joe Biden's made them. | ||
| He said it was a lousy question when they asked me, have you ever been involved? | ||
| Talk to any one of your son's business partners. | ||
| We know that was false. | ||
| Ron Klain said, What do you think about all those false statements from the White House and this abuse of power issue? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the involvement of White House staff and executive branch staff has been... | |
| Really, one of the tripwires that we saw in Nixon, to some extent even in Clinton, the degree to which you enlist support for a false narrative or to obstruct Congress can go into things like abuse of power. | ||
| One of the things that I suggested is that if you look at past impeachment inquiries, and once again, this is an inquiry to find evidence, you're not voting on articles of impeachment, those allegations tend to develop last. | ||
| Can you look at what you have found? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| How about the Attorney General? | ||
| I'm concerned about statements he made. | ||
| March 1st, 2023, in front of the Senate, he was asked a question about Mr. Weiss's investigation. | ||
| He said this in response to Senator Grassley. | ||
| Mr. Weiss has full authority to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it's necessary. | ||
| Last week, the Attorney General told us that Weiss had the authority because I promised him he would have the authority if he asked it. | ||
| That seems to me to be something different. | ||
| He said to the Senate, he's got full authority, no problem. | ||
| Last week he told the House Judiciary Committee he had authority because I promised if he come talk to me, I would give him the authority. | ||
| That I already told the Senate he had. | ||
| You see a concern there with false statements coming from the Biden Justice Department. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there is a concern. | |
| You don't have to prejudge the evidence to say that obviously this is part of the inquiry. | ||
| And what I don't understand is the opposition to the inquiry itself. | ||
| It seems to me the test is. | ||
| Would the alleged conduct, if proven, establish impeachable offenses? | ||
| And is there a credible basis for those allegations? | ||
| I think the answer is clearly yes, that there is a basis to look at the president's conduct without prejudging whether that qualifies at the beginning of that inquiry as an article of impeachment. | ||
| And let's be clear, you don't need a full vote of the House to proceed in an impeachment inquiry phase of our constitutional duty to do oversight. | ||
| In fact, the Democrats did it. | ||
| Four years ago, I was in an impeachment deposition run by Adam Schiff in the bunker in the basement of the Capitol, and I went to the floor. | ||
| So I'm in an impeachment deposition, and I went to the floor to vote on opening an impeachment inquiry. | ||
| They did the same darn thing because you have that authority as a Congress when the Speaker of the House makes that designation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| The Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, did in fact initiate the impeachment. | ||
| In some cases, then you have a later vote. | ||
| I've said in my testimony, I consider that... | ||
| The best practice to have a vote of the House. | ||
| But the court that was referenced earlier looked at this and said that the Constitution does not require a resolution. | ||
| It actually said if you look at all the impeachments, often there wasn't a resolution. | ||
| That doesn't mean it's not a good practice, but the Constitution itself does not require such a resolution. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, I do want to agree with the chairman that the witnesses we have here today do bring an awful lot of experience and expertise to the issue. | |
| But what they don't bring is facts, right? | ||
| They don't bring evidence. | ||
| None of you are able to really elucidate or illustrate actions by the president with respect to this inquiry. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, I do want to ask one clarification. | ||
| You mentioned in your oral testimony that you had written a commentary entitled "You'd Go to Prison for What Biden Did." You'd go to prison for what Hunter Biden did, isn't that? | ||
| That's exactly right. | ||
| I was cutting down words to stay within my five minutes. | ||
| But you realize, you realize, yeah, yeah. | ||
| That's an important word, though, that you left out, though, right? | ||
| Yes, I regret it. | ||
| So the article, just for the record, and I like to enter into the record, unanimous consent. | ||
| Without objection to the order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The article of Melissa O 'Connor is, you'd go to prison for what Hunter Biden did. | |
| I think that's an important word. | ||
| It is. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I did not delete it intentionally. | |
| Reclaiming my time. | ||
| Reclaiming my time. | ||
| They're not signing their best. | ||
|
unidentified
|
When I walked into this hearing room, my first question was, where's Rudy? | |
| Where's Rudy? | ||
| Where's Rudy Giuliani? | ||
| You know, this was supposed to be an inquiry on the facts against the president for potentially an impeachment. | ||
| Articles of impeachment. | ||
| And the one person who was an agent of President Trump was sent to Ukraine to dig up some dirt, find some dirt on Joe Biden. | ||
| Just like he said to the election officials in Georgia, find me 11,780 votes. | ||
| Find me some dirt on Joe Biden. | ||
| And we don't have him here. | ||
| We're not allowed to ask him questions. | ||
| And I... | ||
| Professor Gearhart, would it not be helpful to have a factual witness here who was... | ||
| Let me just read from... | ||
| This is an excerpt of the call between Mr. Trump and President Zelensky. | ||
| He says... | ||
| Rudy very much knows what's happening, and he is a very capable guy. | ||
| If you could speak to him, that would be great. | ||
| The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution, and a lot of people want to find out about that. | ||
| So whatever you can do with the Attorney General and Rudy would be great. | ||
| Perfect phone call. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So he's actually placing Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine with the imprimatur of authority for the president. | |
| Wouldn't that be a useful witness to... | ||
| It seems obvious that he should be brought before the committee. | ||
| Yeah, you would think so. | ||
| What we have here is a lot of allegations. | ||
| I've heard about, you know, emails from Hunter Biden from China. | ||
| Hunter Biden cashed in. | ||
| You know, the IRS interview with James Biden. | ||
| I hear a lot about the Biden family. | ||
| But look, this is an impeachment inquiry about President Biden. | ||
| And I would try to discern what the allegations are for the president because they're non-existent at this point. | ||
| Is there a reason? | ||
| The other question is, why hasn't Rudy Giuliani, if he's such a key witness and was on the ground on this and had direct authority from the president, why isn't he here? | ||
| And I think, and Mr. Professor Gerhardt, maybe you could elucidate on this. | ||
| Rudy Giuliano also lost 60 cases. | ||
| He brought 60 cases across the United States with respect to the big lie, and he was a midwife of the big lie. | ||
| He brought 60 cases and lost them all for lack of evidence. | ||
| You got a point, pal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that, I believe, hurts his credibility. | |
| Does it not? | ||
| It does. | ||
| His credibility has been hurt in a number of different ways. | ||
| Right. | ||
| He also... | ||
| Made allegations against Dominion voting machines. | ||
| And now he's being sued by them because he falsely declared that those machines were unfairly helping President Biden. | ||
| Isn't that right? | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Wouldn't that also lead to a drop in credibility on behalf of... | ||
| Mr. Giuliani's testimony. | ||
| I mean, I agree with you, and I would just add that because Mr. Giuliani's a lawyer, he has to abide by and comply with the rules of professional conduct, and he's in trouble because he hasn't. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Gentlemen, time's expired. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentlemen, time's expired. | ||
| Chairman, I recognize as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Turner from Ohio. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Professor Turley, thank you so much for the materials that you provided to this committee. | |
| Your legal analysis is... | ||
| First off, incredible in its historic foundations, but also its legal descriptions of the aspects of how do you conduct an impeachment investigation, what are the standards for an impeachment investigation, and taking, as you relate in that memo, some of the public facts that you're aware of and comparing them to congressional authority and oversight responsibilities. | ||
| I think it really does help the overall discussion. | ||
| And I think it gives validity to the need for this committee to, to move forward on investigation as you're, All right, let's go. | ||
| Come on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You made some comments in your opening statement about your description that I think are important to focus on in trying to guide our investigation. | |
| You said that it's not criminal for a president or vice president to lie. | ||
| You also said that it's not criminal that Hunter Biden received... | ||
| Well, someone paying the child of a vice president for doing nothing isn't necessarily a criminal. | ||
| Those are my words, not yours. | ||
| But you did take that next leap that using your office, taking official actions to benefit individuals or third parties to induce them to financially benefit your family would be a crime. | ||
| Would it not, Professor? | ||
| It is. | ||
| If you take a look at some of the treaties and sources that I cited, the United States has for years combated influence peddling as a prototypical form of public corruption. | ||
| And much influence peddling follows that pattern. | ||
| Many people now accept that what Hunter Biden did was rather raw and open influence peddling. | ||
| So the only question is, was the president involved in that? | ||
| And I'm not prejudging that. | ||
| But there's an argument that now that you hear that they were just selling the illusion of access. | ||
| The fact is, you have to ask yourself one question. | ||
| How do you know? | ||
| Even if you accept that selling the illusion of access is not misconduct, how do you know it was an illusion? | ||
| Well, that's where I'm going to go next, because there's also another concerning aspect of President Joe Biden's Thank you. | ||
| his misuse of classified documents. | ||
| There has been appointed by the Department of Justice, by the Attorney General, a special prosecutor for the purposes of investigating the federal crimes that... | ||
| Could have arisen as a result from this president's misuse of classified documents. | ||
| The fact that he had them at the Penn-Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and the Wilmington-Delaware private residence of President Joe Biden, as well as other matters that might arise from it, places where there were other people. | ||
| One of those other people happens to be Hunter Biden. | ||
| Now, this committee, in its scope of this investigation, indicates that These classified materials are also relevant because, for example, the Oversight Committee has requested information regarding the classified materials discovered in the president's home where his son has resided during the time period relevant to the investigation and personal office. | ||
| The White House has not provided this information. | ||
| Obviously, his son was receiving payments from Romania, Russia, Ukraine, China. | ||
| If there are in those documents, documents that relate to, for example, the prosecutor in Ukraine, or Burisma itself, or other aspects of Ukraine, or any of the parties or individuals, obviously, that were making payments to Hunter Biden, that would be relevant, wouldn't it? | ||
| It would be relevant. | ||
| One of the things I address in my testimony is I say that the most concerning line for me in this inquiry is pre-office conduct. | ||
| And what I say is that there should be a type of rebuttable presumption against bringing in pre-office conduct. | ||
| But there is precedent for it when it forms. | ||
| And this, he was in office at the time because he wouldn't have had access to classified documents. | ||
| These are not things that he did as a private citizen. | ||
| He had these documents given to him. | ||
| I want to ask you, in his scope as both senator and as vice president, There's been a lot of talk that perhaps the president inadvertently ended up with these documents. | ||
| Now, first of all, there's an unbelievable number of documents. | ||
| He's clearly a classified document hoarder, and he clearly was mishandling them. | ||
| Can't you infer intent by knowledge of the law? | ||
| Here, President Biden knows how to handle classified documents and what mishandling is. | ||
| Wouldn't that be attributed to his intent? | ||
| Well, that can all go to a question of establishing intent. | ||
| In all these cases, you obviously don't have a confession. | ||
| I'm not too sure if the documents matter will become relevant to an impeachment inquiry. | ||
| I've said earlier that the issue that concerned me about the documents is that they ended up being distributed to different... | ||
| It appears that they went to different locations and there are accounts of being in the president's home. | ||
| The question is, were they divided and why? | ||
| But it's not clear to me whether that would amount to an impeachable offense or not. | ||
| Right. | ||
| You have to make that nexus. | ||
| I've seen some of these documents as the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. | ||
| I can tell you they are of the highest level of concern and threat to national security. | ||
| I think we do have to get to the bottom of why was he taking this and what was he doing with them? | ||
| I'll yield back. | ||
| Chairman, I have a unanimous consent motion. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, unanimous consent motion. | ||
| I ask unanimous consent to introduce page 131 of the transcript of Devin Archer's testimony where the question is asked, but he did not provide the Burisma executives with actual access to his father. | ||
| The access to his father was an illusion of... | ||
| Gentlemen, it's out of order. | ||
| You'll have time. | ||
| In your five minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Is it admitted? | ||
| I object. | ||
| The clock's ticking, Mr. Connelly. | ||
| What's the objection based on? | ||
| Mr. Goldman's taking your time, Mr. Connelly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You have your turn to speak. | |
| Distract. | ||
| Yeah, you're taking time away from me unfairly. | ||
| Distract, deflect, assemble. | ||
| Hold on to those two words, distract and deflect, because I think this hearing is all about, look over here, not over there. | ||
| So, Professor Gerhardt, I've heard concern about branding. | ||
| So, shouldn't we be concerned about all those Biden towers all over the world where foreign partnerships were formed and influenced? | ||
| I've seen these towers in Indonesia, in the Philippines, in Turkey. | ||
| I even saw one in Chicago. | ||
| Shouldn't that be a source of concern of this committee in terms of influence both foreign and domestic when President Biden became president? | ||
| If there were such things as Biden buildings. | ||
| Was there anyone who did have them? | ||
| I think we all know who had them. | ||
| Could you tell us? | ||
| Just give me the name, Professor. | ||
| I think we're talking about Mr. Trump. | ||
| Ah, thank you. | ||
| So, when President Biden appointed his son to manage U.S. foreign policy, both in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East peace, by the way, his son who couldn't qualify for getting a security clearance, but President Biden apparently granted it to Hunter anyhow, and then... | ||
| After leaving the White House, getting a $2 billion deal, because we're told by Mr. Dubinsky, follow the money, especially foreign money. | ||
| Shouldn't that be a concern to us that maybe a sweetheart deal occurred with the blessing of the president with foreign money? | ||
| And shouldn't we look into Biden for that, given the fact that he handled Middle East peace in the White House? | ||
| It should have been a concern with President Trump and his son-in-law. | ||
| Oh, Trump. | ||
| I got that wrong again. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| Well, let's see. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm looking at... | |
| I heard again... | ||
| They're not saying their best. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it was Professor Turley talking about, you know, because he's not prejudging, of course, but he's just suggesting that maybe we want to look into criminal activity like obstruction, fraud, and abuse of power. | |
| So let's take fraud. | ||
| So shouldn't we be concerned that a New York judge just found President Biden's organization committed fraud every year for the last 10 or 15 years, and that under the Martin Law in New York, that Biden organization is now subject to dismemberment and dismantlement because of the fraudulent activity? | ||
| Shouldn't that be of concern to us? | ||
| That should be of concern with respect to Mr. Trump. | ||
| Mr. Trump again? | ||
| And in this case, we're not speculating. | ||
| A judge actually made that ruling? | ||
| Look at the mask in the background. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hmm. | |
| Look at the mask. | ||
| Look at the staffers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look at these Democrats staffers. | |
| I mean, while we're at it, since we're loading on, shouldn't we be concerned about the personal behavior of a president? | ||
| For example, President Trump or President Biden being found guilty of sexual assault? | ||
| And defamation associated with that activity, again, in a civil court, in this case in New York? | ||
| We should be concerned as it relates to Mr. Trump, yes. | ||
| With Mr. Trump again. | ||
| I just think that one of the reasons we're here is because somebody has been indicted in four different locales, on four different sets of concerns, with, | ||
| I think, 8191 actual counts and has been found guilty in two civil proceedings, one involving sexual behavior and one on actual corporate fraudulent activity. | ||
| And we don't want to talk about any of that. | ||
| We want to speculate about discredited testimony from discredited witnesses like Rudy Giuliani, whom we're afraid to subpoena. | ||
| That's what this is all about. | ||
| This isn't about our need to defend Joe Biden. | ||
| This is about their need to make sure we get off topic, that we no longer talk about the pending criminal trials of the former president of the United States. | ||
| And if anything's worthy of examination, that is not this. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Chair and the recognize, Mr. Donald, point of order, down here. | ||
| Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Chair recognizes Mr. Donald for five minutes. | ||
| You'll have five minutes. | ||
| No, you're out of order. | ||
| You're out of order, Mr. Goldman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
When your time is, you will be ready. | |
| Chair recognizes Mr. Donald for five minutes. | ||
| Is it being introduced? | ||
| Chair recognizes Mr. Donald for five minutes. | ||
| Byron, it's your time. | ||
| The rules require you to recognize. | ||
| Silence, gold man. | ||
| Yes, for a point of order, they absolutely do. | ||
| Chair recognizes Mr. Donald. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And is Mr. Donald's time ticking too? | |
| No, Mr. Donald's time is not going to take. | ||
| Actually, Mr. Chairman, I request this clock be set back to five minutes. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, can I just make a parliamentary inquiry then? | ||
| Are we not to make points of order on either side during the question? | ||
| You keep speaking about no evidence. | ||
| Why don't you all just listen? | ||
| I'm trying to introduce evidence. | ||
| You've already had your... | ||
| Is it evidence? | ||
| Mr. Donald, five minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, I want to come to you quickly. | ||
| A lot of talk about evidence. | ||
| On the screens in the room, we have an organizational chart from the IRS investigative team that was looking into the business practices of Hunter Biden and his associates. | ||
| This org chart is from 2014. | ||
| Now, Mr. Dubinsky, my former life, I was in... | ||
| Community banking. | ||
| And I'm comfortable with looking at organizational charts. | ||
| When I first saw this chart, the first thing I thought about was a real estate holding company or a developer, and this is not to demean developers in the great East state of America, but developers typically have multiple companies that float with various business interests and business lines. | ||
| But the funny thing is that in the business dealings of Hunter Biden, there is no real estate. | ||
| None at all. | ||
| So, Mr. Dubinsky, in your professional experience, looking at this organizational chart of business structure, what do you see here? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I see a very complicated structure of entities that are interrelated and would give me concern. | |
| If I were an investigator, I would want to know what's going on in these entities, who's behind them, how's the money moving between them, and what is the substance of the transactions? | ||
| What's really going on here? | ||
| Mr. Dominski, do you think it's in the interest of this committee that is now in an inquiry phase to actually find out all of the flow of money between these entities and what the purpose was? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| Next slide, please. | ||
| For my colleagues on the other side, we're going to start talking evidence now. | ||
| This is now a slide of the organizational chart of the Hunter Biden business companies and with associates from 2018. | ||
| From the same IRS investigators who broke down the business structure in 2014. | ||
| Does this slide cause you the same concern, Mr. Dubinsky? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, it does. | |
| Okay, now let's talk about some more. | ||
| Actually, one point I want to make on this. | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, and I know it's kind of small, so I would love to submit all this for the record. | ||
| I would love my colleagues on the other side to see this. | ||
| In 2014, one of the key owners was Devin Archer. | ||
| Who did testify and who was under deposition under oath by the Oversight Committee. | ||
| In 2018, Devin Archer is no longer listed, but his wife Krista Archer is now listed. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, when you see a situation where ownership interest moves from one spouse to the other, is that a concern of some level of fraud potentially? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would call it a red flag. | |
| That's something I would look at and, again, try to get to the bottom of what happened there. | ||
| Was it just transferred? | ||
| Was there money behind it? | ||
| What was going on? | ||
| Okay, thank you. | ||
| Next slide. | ||
| Now, this is still a text message. | ||
| This is a text message between, it's going to Naomi Biden. | ||
| That's what this one is. | ||
| Hold on, let me get my stuff back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There we go. | |
| Sorry. | ||
| This is the WhatsApp text message between Jim Biden and Hunter Biden. | ||
| In this text message, it clearly says, anyway, we can talk later, but you've been drawn into something purely for the purpose of protecting dad. | ||
| This is between Hunter Biden and Jim Biden. | ||
| Last time I checked, the father of Jim Biden and Joe Biden has now passed away. | ||
| So I'm assuming this is Hunter Biden saying to Jim Biden, the president's brother, that you've been brought in this for the sole purpose of protecting dad. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, do you think that this text message would lead this committee to get further information about the business dealings of Hunter Biden and how that actually links to Jim Biden, the president's brother, and why they are so concerned with protecting? | ||
| Dad, a.k.a. | ||
| Joe Biden, a.k.a. | ||
| the President of the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Next slide, please. | ||
| This is a text message between Hunter Biden and Naomi Biden. | ||
| And this one is a famous one. | ||
| Everybody knows this one. | ||
| This is a famous one that says, I hope you all do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years. | ||
| It's really hard. | ||
| But don't worry. | ||
| Unlike Pop. | ||
| I won't make you give me half your salary. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, if you saw a text message like this in a potential money laundering operation or a potential pay-for-play operation, would you be looking for information related to money going from son to father? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely, without a doubt. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Next slide. | ||
| Oh, this is a fun one. | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, this one is from 2018. | ||
| This is about four months before Joe Biden launched his campaign for President of the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a fun one. | |
| December 2018. | ||
| The highlight is, this is a text message between Jim Biden and Hunter Biden. | ||
| Hunter Biden was in a bad way, by the way. | ||
| He was really strung out. | ||
| He lost a bunch of money. | ||
| He needed help. | ||
| Jim Biden says, this can work. | ||
| You need a safe harbor. | ||
| I can work with your father alone. | ||
| It'll probably take several months and everybody can read the text. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, Ms. Dubinsky, if you saw text messages like this between the president's brother and the president's son, wouldn't you be concerned about them trying to give plausible deniability for the president of the United States to not have any knowledge of said business dealings? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's worth investigating. | |
| Mr. Dubinsky? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would agree. | |
| I would investigate this. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Gentlemen, before I recognize Mr. Christian Morte, Mr. Goldman, I will give you an opportunity to quickly recognize you for your point of order. | ||
| I just want to make sure that page 131 of the transcript of the Devin Archer interview is entered into the record. | ||
| Without objection to order. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Chair recognizes Mr. Christian Morte from Illinois. | ||
| Man, Byron Donalds. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Professor Turner, Hunter Biden's a citizen, not a federal official, right? | |
| Yes, sir. | ||
| A special counsel investigating Hunter Biden recently indicted him for various illegal acts. | ||
| I'm sure you're aware of this indictment. | ||
| I have it in my hands. | ||
| But nowhere in Hunter Biden's indictment is there any allegation of Joe Biden having committed any wrongdoing, right? | ||
| That's correct, sir. | ||
| Not a parking ticket, not a moving violation, not a library fine, not a high crime or misdemeanor. | ||
| In fact, on page 19 of your witness statement that you submitted, you said, quote, Now let's further explore what's been established about Joe Biden. | ||
| The Hill reports Senator Marco Rubio. | ||
| Quote, noted that House Republicans are discussing a special impeachment inquiry to obtain evidence of criminal behavior that they have not been able to dig up through the House Oversight Committee. | ||
| And Rubio warned that setting up a special impeachment council without strong evidence of a crime could trivialize the process. | ||
| Now, Sir Senator Rubio is a Republican, right? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Let's talk about whether this evidence that Mr. Rubio was referring to exists. | ||
| Our colleague Ken Buck, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said the following regarding evidence linking President Biden to an alleged crime. | ||
| Quote, that doesn't exist right now. | ||
| Now, sir, Ken Buck is a Republican, correct? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said, quote, there hasn't been any allegation yet, any conduct, which reaches the constitutional standard for impeachment. | ||
| And Sir Mitt Romney is a Republican as well, correct? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Now, let me turn to another topic here. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, here I have a poster of an entry from your professional LinkedIn account. | ||
| There's your picture, and it says, Law Office of Eileen J. O 'Connor. | ||
| We printed here what you posted roughly one week ago. | ||
| It says, quote, The Biden administration is promoting and enabling the invasion. | ||
| That's what your post says, right? | ||
| Yes, it does. | ||
| And it further goes on to say, if this doesn't stop quickly, then the entire USA will be invaded with millions of military-aged men from many different countries who are ready to cause total havoc while getting paid $2,200 a month in welfare to do so. | ||
| Did I write that? | ||
| You reposted it, and it says it is an engineered death spiral. | ||
| Now, let me show you another posting that you put up on your professional LinkedIn account. | ||
| May I respond? | ||
| You can respond when I'm done with my question. | ||
| Ma 'am, this is another posting from your professional LinkedIn account that says announcing Michigan Telethon to raise funds for 16 alternate electors. | ||
| Now, ma 'am, that's your professional LinkedIn account, right? | ||
| It is. | ||
| Now, let me turn to you, Mr. Turley. | ||
| Professor Turley, in 2006, you wrote an op-ed in The Guardian entitled, quote, Stop Persecuting Polygamists. | ||
| There, you liken polygamists to, quote, persecuted minorities. | ||
| And you said polygamy is, quote, a practice with deep and good faith religious meaning. | ||
| Isn't that what you said? | ||
| I represented the sister-wife's family in challenging a polygamy prosecutor. | ||
| The answer is yes. | ||
| You've been crusading for legalizing polygamy for years. | ||
| In fact, in an op-ed in the USA Today, you said that a Utah polygamist named Tom Green... | ||
| Who was also convicted of pedophilia for raping his 13-year-old stepdaughter should not have been charged with polygamy. | ||
| Now, Mr. Chairman, we're counting... | ||
| Can I respond? | ||
| Because it's not entirely accurate. | ||
| I actually criticized him. | ||
| What I was dealing with was the constitutionality of what is called morals legislation. | ||
| And I admit I'm pretty libertarian. | ||
| Was Tom Green convicted of pedophilia and rape? | ||
| Was he convicted of pedophilia and rape? | ||
| The answer is yes. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, we're counting down the hours until a government shutdown, and here we have a hearing where we have one witness who defended a polygamist who was convicted of pedophilia and rape, and we have another witness with LinkedIn accounts with extreme views posted. | ||
| I think that, unfortunately, this speaks to the credibility of the witnesses and the credibility of this impeachment inquiry. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Point of order. | ||
| Point of order right away. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, when a member of the committee impugns the integrity of a witness, is it against the rules to allow those witnesses to respond to that malicious statement? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm quoting the article. | |
| I'm not asking you. | ||
| I'm asking the chairman. | ||
| I've asked for a ruling on that. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, he can use his own time to question any witness he wants. | ||
| I was recognized on a point of order. | ||
| Point of order. | ||
| What's your point? | ||
| My point is that if I ask for a ruling on my point of order first, I ask for a ruling on my point of order first. | ||
| Here's a ruling. | ||
| The witnesses have the opportunity to address that during a line of questioning. | ||
| If Mr. Charlie wants to address that during another member's line of questioning, then he's more than welcome to do that. | ||
| Remind everyone we're on their five-minute clock and now The chair recognizes Ms. Mace from South Carolina. | ||
| All right, here we go, Nancy Mace. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| In 2019, Representative Raskin didn't think a House vote was needed for an actual impeachment inquiry. | ||
| And to quote Representative Raskin, he said in 2019, there's no formal constitutional or statutory or even the House rule for how an impeachment inquiry is to begin. | ||
| And so it means different things to different people. | ||
| I don't want to hear another word from the left or anyone across the other side of the aisle about impeachment inquiry. | ||
| This is complete and total hypocrisy. | ||
| Today, we're going to bring the facts. | ||
| Today, we are going to bring the evidence. | ||
| In 2017, the Joe Biden family teamed up with Chinese company CEFC to make millions off of granting access to Joe Biden. | ||
| Hunter even arranged for Joe Biden to share office space with the CCP-aligned company CEFC. | ||
| My Democrat colleagues say none of this is relevant because Joe Biden wasn't vice president while his family did these shady deals. | ||
| Turns out that's complete and total bullshit. | ||
| It's a lie. | ||
| Hunter Biden referred to access to his father as the keys to his family's only asset. | ||
| Those words are going to come back and haunt Hunter Biden and his family forever. | ||
| Yesterday, the Ways and Means Committee released an FBI memo on the interview they have with Tony Bobulinski, a former Biden partner in crime. | ||
| I'll read a bit of that right now. | ||
| The work conducted by CEFC, Gilear, Walker, Hunter Biden, James Biden, and Yee over the preceding two years was discussed in detail. | ||
| In particular, CEFC was closing significant investment deals in Poland, Kazakhstan, Romania, Oman, and the Middle East during this period of time. | ||
| Period of time is in reference to the years 2015 and 2016, when guess what? | ||
| Joe Biden was vice president. | ||
| As an aside, Rob Walker in previous testimony also confirmed that Joe Biden attended a meeting with the head of CEFC. | ||
| So now we know CEFC was working with the Biden family while Joe Biden was vice president. | ||
| And I'll continue reading from Tony Bobulinski's report. | ||
| which says, and I quote Bobulinski, Hunter Biden and James Biden did not receive compensation because Joe Biden was still vice president during this time period. | ||
| There is a concern it would be improper for payments to be made to Hunter Biden and James Biden by CEFC due to its close affiliation with the Chinese government. | ||
| Hunter Biden and James Biden both wanted to be compensated for the assistance they had provided to CEFC's ventures. | ||
| In particular, they believe CEFC owed them money for the benefits that accrued to CEFC through its use of the Biden family name to advance their business dealings. | ||
| The Biden's, coincidentally, were paid over a million dollars by CCP-affiliated Chinese company CEFC shortly after Joe Biden left office as vice president. | ||
| Now we know why, because it was back pay. | ||
| I'm going to show another image. | ||
| This is a text message between Hunter Biden and Gong Wen Dong, an agent of CEFC. | ||
| Hunter says, my uncle will be here with his brother, in all caps, who would like to say hello to the chairman. | ||
| He goes on, Jim's brother, if he's coming, wants to say hello. | ||
| His uncle's brother. | ||
| I wonder who that could be. | ||
| I can't quite figure it out. | ||
| Hunter puts BROTHER in all caps, and it doesn't take a genius to figure this out, but since I'm not always dealing with geniuses, and Washington, D.C. has been illustrated today, I'll spell it out. | ||
| The brother of Hunter's uncle, Jim, is Joe Biden. | ||
| Why was Hunter so secretive about his father? | ||
| I'm going to tell you why. | ||
| It's because Joe Biden didn't want the American people to know he and his family were getting paid millions and millions of dollars from a company closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| CEFC knew paying Biden family members was bad, so they covered it up. | ||
| Hunter knew Joe Biden hanging out with CCP businessmen would be a bad look, so he tried to pull a genius move on us with this whole my uncle's brother bullshit. | ||
| We already know the president took bribes from Burisma. | ||
| I also want to add, betraying your country is treason. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I asked unanimous consent to enter into the record. | ||
| This text message between Hunter Biden and Gangnam Dong and the FBI memo regarding their interview with Tony Bobulinski, showing Joe Biden's connections to CIA. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, the issue with influence peddling is that it can, in some circumstances, be legal, but it's not something that necessarily is made public. | |
| The public does not buy into the idea that you can sell your family brand if it's influence peddling. | ||
| So what happens with influence peddling is that you often have the commission of crimes that conceal it. | ||
| And to take steps so that it's not public. | ||
| That may include, but it's not necessarily the reason in this case, but it may include the failure to pay taxes, the failure to register as a foreign agent. | ||
| And part of the purpose of an inquiry is to see if there is a linkage between those acts and, more importantly, a linkage to the president. | ||
| Can I briefly respond to the earlier attack? | ||
| You may have additional questions. | ||
| I don't want to take your time. | ||
| Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I'm sorry to get a ladies over time, but we'll... | ||
| Work with you on that, because I do think you need to respond to that ridiculous statement. | ||
| Now, chair recognizes Mr. Conner for five minutes. | ||
| Way to go, Nancy Mays. | ||
| That was Maysdom. | ||
| Mr. Curley, you testified in your written statement about best practices for the House, and you say that it's not legally required for the House to vote to have an impeachment inquiry, but it is a best practice. | ||
| Could you explain why you think it is a best practice for the House to have that vote? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Certainly. | |
| I think that what the courts have said is it's not required, as you noted, so it's not a condition for the initiation of an inquiry. | ||
| I just think it is a good practice. | ||
| Whether it occurs after the initiation, I think still a vote of the entire House. | ||
| It brings the solemnity and the weight to the decision. | ||
| And I do think it's one of the best practices that I suggested in my testimony. | ||
| And what would it mean if the votes weren't there? | ||
| I mean, hypothetically, if they had a vote and 10 or 20 people voted for it. | ||
| I mean, you're a student of constitutional history. | ||
| What would that say? | ||
| I mean, why is it important, in your view, as a best practice to have majority support for something like this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that the public expects members to take this process seriously. | |
| And part of that is to go on the record whether you believe there's grounds for an inquiry. | ||
| So I think that in terms of the best practices, that gives, I think, the weight of the House to the efforts. | ||
| And so that's the reason I criticized the move of Speaker Pelosi. | ||
| It would give you pause if there was a vote which... | ||
| Said that the House didn't think that there should be an inquiry, right? | ||
| I mean, you would give that weight as a constitutional scholar, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If the House as a body said that there should not be an inquiry, then clearly that has, you know, on the merits of the inquiry, that has some weight. | |
| So it would be your recommendation to Speaker McCarthy today to bring up that vote, correct, for a House inquiry? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've always said that I thought it was the best practice. | |
| And your recommendation to him today, I mean, he's listening, I'm sure his staff are, would be bring that vote to the House floor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I always think it's a good idea to bring it to the House floor. | |
| And it would be your testimony, based on what you've said, that if that vote failed, that should have some real consideration in whether we go forward with this. | ||
| I mean, let's put members on the road. | ||
| Because my view is they don't have the votes. | ||
| I think it's going to be a very lopsided vote against it. | ||
| And that's why they're not bringing it to the floor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I can't speak to that. | |
| Let me ask you this. | ||
| You also said that I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. | ||
| And I want to be careful because you said it, you think it supports an inquiry, but not the articles of impeachment themselves. | ||
| I want to be precise in what you've said. | ||
| Can you explain to the committee in the country why you believe that the current evidence does not support the articles of impeachment today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, at the moment, these are allegations, and there is some credible evidence there that is the basis of the allegations. | |
| But I understand that, and I'm not questioning that. | ||
| I'm questioning what you don't think today, if you were going to vote, if this was the case, you would vote no, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
On this evidence, certainly. | |
| Okay, and my question is, if someone said to you, okay, Mr. Turley, why are you voting not to impeach President Biden based on this evidence, where do you think the evidence is lacking? | ||
| Where does it not rise to the level where... | ||
| You think it needs to be? | ||
| What are the places that you think is missing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I said in my testimony that the key here that the committee has to drill down on is whether they can establish a linkage with the influence peddling, which is a form of corruption, and the president, whether he acknowledged, whether he participated, whether he encouraged it. | |
| We simply don't know, and we don't even know if this was an illusion or not, but you can find the answers to that. | ||
| I mean, the back end of these financial transactions, which I have read is where the committee is going, may shed light on that. | ||
| But without that type of nexus, then no, I don't. | ||
| Currently, it's your testimony that that nexus has not been established, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I think that's the purpose of the inquiry. | |
| Yes, that's correct. | ||
| Would you agree with the, have you read Ken Buck's op-ed in the Washington Post, where he basically was one of the Republicans, which is why I think it'd be a lopsided vote against, an inquiry saying that that evidence doesn't exist? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I did, and I respect members of both parties that can stand alone. | |
| He has his reasons for that. | ||
| I personally think that the threshold for an inquiry has surpassed, that you have a duty to inquire as to these allegations, but that's not presupposing what you're going to find. | ||
| Just to summarize, then, it's your formal recommendation to the Speaker to have a vote on the inquiry, and it is also... | ||
| Your testimony today that today you would vote no on impeachment on the current evidence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Since when Speaker Pelosi took this step, I gave the same advice, that I think it's a best practice to go to the floor. | |
| Gentlemen, time has expired. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Channel recognizes Ms. McClain from Michigan for five minutes. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| And before I start with my line of questioning, I just want to make two comments. | ||
| First, Professor Gerhart, I love the analogy that you used about the speeding ticket with Hunter Biden. | ||
| Let me also see if you would agree with this analogy. | ||
| If a criminal pulls a trigger for a murder, he's guilty, right? | ||
| And we can prove it. | ||
| Don't you also agree with me? | ||
| If somebody ordered that hit, we would charge him, too? | ||
| It's interesting that you don't use that analogy. | ||
| That's number one. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have a reason for not using it, but yeah. | |
| Yeah, because it doesn't fit the narrative. | ||
| Number two, I'm amazed at, and I love the fact that Trump lives rent-free in the Democrats' heads every day. | ||
| That is a beautiful thing, even though we're here talking about the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden. | ||
| With that said, I want to talk about the damning evidence of Joe Biden's role in his family's business schemes in Romania. | ||
| While Joe Biden was president, he was directly involved in the United States policy and anti-corruption efforts in Romania. | ||
| That's a fact. | ||
| On May 21, 2014, the then-Vice President Biden delivered an anti-corruption speech in Romania, right? | ||
| On September 28, 2015, the president visited with the then-Vice President Biden, the Romanian president visited with the then-Vice President Biden at the White House to discuss anti-corruption efforts, right? | ||
| Got a theme of corruption, anti-corruption, right? | ||
| Gabriel Popovich, a corrupt Romanian oligarch, in the subject of a criminal probe, he's the subject of a criminal probe and prosecution for corruption and bribery in Romania. | ||
| This committee has reviewed transactions showing that the Biden family received money from a foreign company run by this Russian oligarch, corrupt Gabriel Popovich. | ||
| Five weeks after the Romanian president visited with Vice President Biden, Popovich begins paying Hunter Biden and his associates, Rob Walker, through his company, Bladen Enterprises. | ||
| The money from Bladen Enterprises is deposited directly into Robinson Walker LLC. | ||
| Now, this LLC is directly operated... | ||
| By Hunter's known business partner, Rob Walker. | ||
| These are all facts, right, that we found through the investigation. | ||
| In November 2015, and again in March 2016, Hunter Biden, who is not registered as a foreign agent under Farah, meets with the U.S. ambassador to Romania. | ||
| Red flag. | ||
| Then, coincidentally, over $1 million... | ||
| Flows to the Bidens. | ||
| I'm not much for coincidences, and I don't think the American people are either. | ||
| Let's run through the numbers together. | ||
| Between November 2015 and May 2017, Bladen Enterprises deposited over $3 million into Robinson Walker's LLC business account. | ||
| Then, the Biden family accounts received more than $1 million from Robinson Walker's accounts after these deposits were made. | ||
| Ironically, 16 of those 17 payments occurred while Joe Biden was vice president. | ||
| Now, I think most Americans would find it suspicious that ironically, these payments ended. | ||
| Shortly after Joe Biden left office. | ||
| Another coincidence. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the Oversight Committee's May 10, 2023 Second Bank Records memorandum showing Joe Biden's involvement in his family's business schemes in Romania. | ||
| Without objection to order. | ||
| I see three problems here. | ||
| One, while Joe Biden is touting anti-corruption efforts in Romania. | ||
| Hunter Biden is employed by a corrupt Romanian oligarch. | ||
| Interesting. | ||
| In direct violation of Farah, Hunter Biden meets with the U.S. ambassador to Romania while being paid by Gabriel Popovich. | ||
| What was Hunter Biden selling to the Romanian oligarchs for millions of dollars? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd still like to see a contract of that. | |
| Professor Turley... | ||
| I know I'm almost out of time, but you've previously said that Hunter Biden could be charged under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. | ||
| Can you explain why? | ||
| Gentlemen, please feel free to answer the question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Much of the conduct described in these disclosures does seem to fit what we saw with the charges of Paul Manafort in terms of being a foreign agent. | |
| Some of this does appear to be that type of lobbying on the part of Hunter Biden. | ||
| The failure to register as an agent. | ||
| It, of course, helped conceal that, but that's not necessarily the motivation behind it. | ||
| The question is, should he have registered as a foreign agent during the course of this conduct? | ||
| And it just seems to me, looking at the Paul Manafort indictment, that there's considerable overlap in terms of the type of actions taken. | ||
| Perhaps there's a two-tier justice system. | ||
| May I ask unanimous consent to enter Ms. McLean's chart into the record? | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Mr. Mifume from Maryland for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I did not plan to, but I'd like to follow up on the gentlewoman's comments and assertions about Romania and Hunter Biden and the fact that he worked for a Romanian executive facing corruption charges. | ||
| The problem with that is that Rudy Giuliani also worked for that person. | ||
| And a former FBI director. | ||
| And I'd like to ask unanimous consent that a New York Times piece entitled Giuliani is drawing attention to Hunter Biden's work in Romania, but there's a problem being entered into the record. | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I want to go back to this Burisma theory because it seems to me that if that's what's triggered all of this, and we are sitting here now wasting... | ||
| Precious time while the country is about to shut down and it's all found its genesis with Rudy Giuliani that we ought to have Rudy Giuliani here. | ||
| Now, I know there was a motion made earlier. | ||
| I'd like to disaggregate that motion without mentioning the other person's name and offer a motion again that Rudy Giuliani be required to come before this committee. | ||
| Is there a second? | ||
| And Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask that the clock be paused while the... | ||
| Pause the clock. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Mr. Groffman. | ||
| Chair recognize Mr. Groffman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Motion to table. | |
| Motion made to table by Mr. Groffman. | ||
| Is there a second? | ||
| Second by Ms. Fox. | ||
| So I guess we'll have a vote on Mr. Groffman's motion to table, Mr. Bethume's motion. | ||
| This is about Giuliani, right? | ||
| Yes, okay. | ||
| We'll do this by voice vote. | ||
| All those in favor say aye. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have a recorded vote, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Aye. | ||
| All those opposed, no. | ||
| He's requested a recorded vote. | ||
| In the opinion of the chair, the motion has it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Aye. | |
| I'd request a recorded vote now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I request a recorded vote, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Clerk, please get ready to have a recorded vote. | ||
| Another motion by the minority party. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chair recognizes Mr. Palmer. | |
| There's a motion for a temporary recess. | ||
| Is there a second? | ||
| Motion second. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's already a motion on the floor. | |
| There's a motion and it's mine. | ||
| Would the clerk please report? | ||
| Call the roll. | ||
| Will the clerk call the roll? | ||
| To be clear, this is on the motion to table Mr. Mfume's motion for unanimous consent to call Rudy Giuliani as a witness before the oversight committee. | ||
| Is that right? | ||
| That is correct. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Mr. Jordan. | ||
| Mr. Jordan votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Turner. | ||
| Mr. Gosar. | ||
| Miss Fox. | ||
| Miss Fox votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Grothman. | ||
| Mr. Grothman votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Palmer. | ||
| Mr. Palmer votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Higgins. | ||
| Mr. Higgins votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Sessions. | ||
| Mr. Sessions votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Biggs. | ||
| Mr. Biggs votes aye. | ||
| Ms. Mace. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, what are we voting on? | ||
| This is a motion by Mr. Grofman to table the motion by Mr. Mifume to subpoena Rudy Giuliani. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Got it. | |
| It doesn't seem to have a lot to do with this. | ||
| I'll vote aye. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Miss Mace votes aye. | |
| Mr. Letourner. | ||
| Mr. Letourner votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Fallon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Donalds. | |
| Mr. Armstrong. | ||
| Mr. Armstrong votes yes. | ||
| Mr. Perry. | ||
| Mr. Timmons. | ||
| Mr. Burchett. | ||
| Miss Green. | ||
| Miss McClain. | ||
| Miss McClain votes aye. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Miss Boebert. | |
| Mr. Fry. | ||
| Come on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Fry votes aye. | |
| Miss Luna. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Edwards. | |
| Mr. Edwards votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Langworthy. | ||
| Mr. Burleson. | ||
| Mr. Burleson votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Raskin. | ||
| No. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No! | |
| Mr. Raskin! | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, they are going to be losing this vote because Republicans control the chair and the committee and have more votes, and so they're... | ||
| I think they're going to get a tasty hot cup of witness soup, as they have gotten. | ||
| and we'll be replaying here the questioning of Byron Donald and the questioning of Nancy Mace, which was absolute bombshell stuff. | ||
| They're calling out the role here. | ||
| They're going to try and play parliamentarian games. | ||
| They did this to start off from the get of this committee's hearings. | ||
| The parliamentary games is how they're going to try and stop the evidence of Joe Biden's obvious criminal conduct from coming forward by the committee. | ||
| This has been a really, really unbelievably damning indictment of Joe Biden. | ||
| I think the obvious real winners have been when you see the text messages directly from Hunter Biden and directly from Jim Biden talking about, Defrauds the American taxpayers and is treasonous at its heart. | ||
| The Dems have brought in a very soft witness, very Pixar, like a Pixar-looking guy. | ||
| You ever seen Wall-E? | ||
| It looks like one of the people sitting around in the spaceship in Wall-E. | ||
| One of the lardos, like, blobbing around. | ||
| Let's go back. | ||
| Let's see. | ||
| Let's make sure that they won this vote. | ||
| And then if they take a recess, if they take a recess, then we're going to do some of the biggest highlights that we just missed. | ||
| We had over the last hour and a half. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not recorded. | |
| Mr. Langworthy votes aye. | ||
| How is Mr. Timmons from South Carolina recorded? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Timmons is not yet recorded. | |
| Mr. Timmons votes aye. | ||
| How is Mr. Gosar from Arizona recorded? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Gosar is not recorded. | |
| Mr. Gosar votes aye. | ||
| Mr. Connolly is not yet recorded. | ||
| Mr. Connolly votes no. | ||
| Mr. Krishnamoorthy is not yet recorded. | ||
| Mr. Krishnamoorthy votes no. | ||
| How's Mr. Armstrong recorded? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, they're just counting votes here. | |
| Republicans are going to win this, and then I think that Comer said they're going to take a recess. | ||
| So, ladies and gentlemen, let's see if that happens. | ||
| I really want to see Lauren Boebert's questioning. | ||
| And I want to see some of the other questioning of the committee members. | ||
| We've been doing the math. | ||
| We've had... | ||
| Let's go ahead and jump back here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Raskin, you are recorded as voting no. | |
| Mr. Raskin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Gomez, you are recorded as voting no. | |
| Mr. Raskin. | ||
| Congressman Ocasio-Cortez, how am I recording? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is recorded as voting no. | |
| So we've got AOC and Lauren Boebert up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ms. Brown is not yet recorded. | |
| Ms. Brown votes no. | ||
| Will the clerk please tally the votes? | ||
| Oh my god. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So anyway, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to have Lauren Boebert and AOC's questioning up here momentarily. | ||
| Let's make sure that Republicans win this one, and then we will... | ||
|
unidentified
|
The ayes are 20, the nays are 18. The motion to table passes. | |
| Mr. Bifuma, you're recognized for your final three and a half minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I reclaim my time, and I ask the question, where in the world is Rudy Giuliani? | ||
| That's how we got here, ladies and gentlemen. | ||
| And this committee is afraid to bring him before us and put him on the record. | ||
| Shame. | ||
| And the question was raised, what does this have to do with it? | ||
| It has everything to do with it. | ||
| Professor Gearhart, in your testimony, you said in every impeachment inquiry, beforehand the House has identified some credible evidence. | ||
| Of wrongdoing committed by a targeted president. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Professor Gearhart, are impeachment inquiries typically utilized as a frontline tool to go fishing or for the first time go seeking evidence? | ||
| No, sir. | ||
| Professor Gearhart, would you say that House Republicans have made an unprecedented overreach of congressional power? | ||
| It strikes me that it is. | ||
| And Mr. Gerhardt, would you say it's fair to assume that the extreme MAGA Republicans in particular have misused, if not abused, committee's resources and the taxpayer dollars in this prolonged investigation that has gone on for almost a year, subpoenaing documents, having hearings, providing boxes of evidence, and no wrongdoing? | ||
| Sir, I appreciate the question. | ||
| I'm not sure who the MAGA Republicans are. | ||
| I can point them out to you. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I would ask that gentleman please point out the Republicans he's referring to. | ||
| He said he could. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm reclaiming my time. | |
| Clay Higgins, come on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ladies and gentlemen, this clock is showing what's happening to our country while we debate over and over and over again. | |
| Not any wrongdoing by President Biden, but trying to link what his son may or may not have done to him. | ||
| People are going to be hurt when this time runs out. | ||
| This is not the Wizard of Oz when all of a sudden she turns over the hourglass while the wicked witch is standing there. | ||
| These are children. | ||
| These are women. | ||
| These are military officers and soldiers and civilians. | ||
| These are law enforcement officers. | ||
| These are senior citizens looking for paychecks for Social Security. | ||
| Why in the hell are we playing this game? | ||
| And why don't we be honest? | ||
| If it were so important, it could wait. | ||
| This is what is important. | ||
| Protecting this government and protecting the people who pay taxes here. | ||
| But we want to play games with all of this. | ||
| So where is Rudy Giuliani right now? | ||
| I'd like to know. | ||
| And I'd like to know why we can't bring him before this committee, like we brought these witnesses and everybody else. | ||
| I yield back this time to the ranking member. | ||
| Well, I want to thank the distinguished gentleman from Baltimore for his passionate and lucid comments here. | ||
| And I appreciate the fact that you introduced a motion to subpoena Giuliani before. | ||
| I'd introduced a motion to subpoena Giuliani and Lev Parnas. | ||
| Now, Lev Parnas wrote us a long letter saying that all of this is based on a fraud, a tissue of fraud. | ||
| He went all over the world with Rudy Giuliani looking to find... | ||
| Is he alleging that China money was a fraud? | ||
| Are you asking me to yield? | ||
| Are you asking me to yield? | ||
| I'm happy to yield for a second. | ||
| What is your question, Mr. Sherman? | ||
| What fraud are you... | ||
| Well, I've introduced in the record, in case you haven't read it yet, the letter that Lev Parnas wrote to you and to me. | ||
| In it, he called upon you to call off this wild goose chase. | ||
| Because of China money that the Bidens have received? | ||
| No, because all of this is based on the Burisma conspiracy. | ||
| The China money is based on the Burisma conspiracy. | ||
| Well, I've seen a lot of China money. | ||
| Someone can yield Dr. Fox from North Carolina for five minutes. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| This is not a game. | ||
| This is very serious business. | ||
| And I think at the end, it will be proven to the American people that this is serious business. | ||
| We need to get on with it. | ||
| We need to have the other side to stop playing games. | ||
| Uh-oh. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor. | ||
| In a column published in the Wall Street Journal, you stated that the typical timidity of IRS criminal tax lawyers in recommending prosecution is, quote, common knowledge in the tax enforcement community, end quote. | ||
| Can you explain where this timidity comes from? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for the question. | |
| But it is common knowledge in the tax enforcement community. | ||
| The tax division is required to authorize any criminal tax charges that are going to be brought. | ||
| In order to inform itself, the special agent report is provided to the tax division. | ||
| Before it gets to the tax division, IRS criminal and criminal tax attorneys review it. | ||
| They are, because, I'm sorry, I'm having trouble answering. | ||
| Let me give you some more guidance. | ||
| Before bringing charges, IRS criminal lawyers, as you're alluding to, provide advisory views. | ||
| In a special agent report. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| And they are advisory only. | ||
| And the IRS, as any prosecutor is, is very determined to have a very high conviction rate. | ||
| So they want to be very, very careful that if they bring a case, they will win it. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So can you describe a typical special agent report? | ||
| And the special agent report specific to Hunter Biden's case? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Certainly. | |
| The whistleblowers have testified that nearly 1,000 pages were provided in the special agent report to the tax division. | ||
| That special agent report consisted not only of a discussion of what they had discovered, but also every bit of evidence that they found that supported each element of each crime for each year for which they were recommending charges. | ||
| Let me follow up again, please. | ||
| More than a year after DOJ's tax division received this report, the division created a 99-page memorandum I might be wrong about how long it took the tax division. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've seen other information suggesting it was a much shorter period of time. | |
| But they did do that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I understand that the tax division did produce a 99-page memo authorizing all the charges the special agents had recommended. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| So, Ms. O 'Connor, you said DOJ's tax division recommended six felonies and five misdemeanors. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's correct. | |
| Hunter Biden was only initially charged with two counts of willful failure to pay federal income taxes as part of the plea deal. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| For just two years. | ||
| And these are misdemeanors? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Okay. | ||
| But the maximum penalty for these charges is a fine of $25,000, as well as up to one year in federal prison. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Or both. | |
| Or both. | ||
| Yet, Hunter Biden owed more than $100,000 in both 2017 and 2018. | ||
| Correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's what the criminal information alleged. | |
| I think that's a ballpark figure. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Based on the answers you just provided, it's extremely difficult to believe that an individual who is not the son of the sitting U.S. president would be treated this way. | ||
| We're told the Department of Justice treats all citizens equally under the law. | ||
| But based on the evidence this committee has presented, that is not what happened in Delaware. | ||
| Based on your experience, would you agree? | ||
| That that's not what happened in Delaware. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Exactly. | |
| And it was particularly galling because just in the next state in New Jersey, a mechanic was being sentenced to two years for having not paid like $100,000 in taxes. | ||
| So, in this case, there was not equal justice under the law being proposed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely not. | |
| Totally unequal justice. | ||
| That is not what this country stands for. | ||
| We want everybody being treated the same under the law, and my colleagues should feel the same way. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Good lady yields back before I recognized Mr. Ocasio-Cortez. | ||
| I asked unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from Lev Parnas, who Mr. Raskin continues to refer to. | ||
| AOC. | ||
| It's actually a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York. | ||
| It's Lev Parnas sentenced to 20 months in prison for campaign finance, wire fraud, and false statement offenses. | ||
| Yeah, he worked with... | ||
| I'm so ordered. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. | ||
| Here we go, baby. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair. | ||
| Get ready for your IQ to drop. | ||
| It has been repeated, and I would also like to repeat that the allegations being presented... | ||
| By the majority are extremely serious and the prospect of impeachment is also a gravely serious matter which has been echoed by our witnesses today. | ||
| And any serious impeachment investigation or inquiry relies on firsthand sworn testimony of witnesses to high crimes or misdemeanors. | ||
| Today the Republican majority has called in three witnesses to advance their case. | ||
| Mr. Turley, I have a simple question for you. | ||
| In your testimony today Are you presenting any first-hand witness account of crimes committed by the President of the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I'm not. | |
| No, you are not. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, you are the second Republican witness here today. | ||
| Have you, in your testimony, presented any first-hand witness account of crimes committed by the President of the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have not. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Now, Mr. Dubinsky. | ||
| As the third and final Republican witness in this hearing, have you, in your testimony, presented any first-hand witness account of crimes committed by the President of the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have not. | |
| And Professor Gerhardt, given that you are the minority witness, I assume the same, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am not a VAC witness, correct. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| And to clarify, two individuals presented today who do Have first-hand accounts surrounding the progeny of these allegations are being blocked from testifying by the Republican majority. | ||
| And I want to explain why this is important. | ||
| Members of Congress, all of us in this hearing, are not under oath as we are presently covered by the speech and debate clause. | ||
| Isn't that correct, Professor Gerhardt? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is correct. | |
| And the speech and debate clause covers all statements by a member of Congress. | ||
| Whether they are factual or not. | ||
| There are only four people in this room that are presently under oath in their testimony. | ||
| And those are the four witnesses here today. | ||
| Is that correct, Professor Gerhart? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is correct. | |
| And so the direct testimony of the four individual witnesses here today are the bona fide words that this committee must use in order to proceed. | ||
| Or substantiate an investigation. | ||
| And I want to emphasize why that's important. | ||
| Earlier today, one of our colleagues, a gentleman from Florida, presented up on this screen something that looked, appeared to be, a screenshot of a text message containing or insinuating an explosive allegation. | ||
| That screenshot of what appeared to be a text message was a fabricated image. | ||
| What? | ||
| It was a fabricated image. | ||
| I don't know where it came from. | ||
| I don't know if it was the staff of the committee, but it was not the actual direct screenshot from that phone. | ||
| And in fact, I would like to submit to the committee the actual full context from the Ziegler affidavit number one, exhibit 402, of the full text of that exchange. | ||
| Do I have permission from the chair? | ||
| Importantly, what was brought out from that fabricated image excluded critical context that changed the underlying meaning and allegation that was presented up on that screen by this committee and by members of this committee. | ||
| Now, they are well within their right to do that because they are covered by the speech and debate clause. | ||
| This was not submitted. | ||
| By a material or fact witness under oath. | ||
| That was not submitted by a material or fact witness under oath. | ||
| The impeachment inquiry, any impeachment inquiry, regardless of party, is an extremely serious matter. | ||
| Professor Gerhardt, in the impeachment inquiry into President Clinton, were there key fact witnesses that were presented during those proceedings? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There were none in the House. | |
| In the Senate, were there any? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There were. | |
| There were in the Senate. | ||
| Now, in the impeachment investigations with respect to President Trump, were there key material fact witnesses in the House? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma 'am. | |
| There were. | ||
| Are there any key material fact witnesses here today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, ma 'am. | |
| None. | ||
| And so we are wasting our time. | ||
| When we talk about a threshold of an impeachment inquiry, was there a House floor vote that had a majority of members of Congress that opened an impeachment inquiry into President Clinton? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There was. | |
| There was. | ||
| Was there a full House floor vote opening an impeachment inquiry into President Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
In 2019. | |
| Is there one here for this one? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not for this one. | |
| There is not one here for this one. | ||
| This is an embarrassment. | ||
| An embarrassment to the time and people of this country. | ||
| And I would ask that the chair and I would ask that this committee elevate to the promise of our duties here and comport ourselves with the consistency and practice that is required of our seats and our duty and our oath to our responsibilities here. | ||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Okay, I'm concerned about the seriousness of these allegations. | ||
| And what bothers me a little is I'm beginning to think Americans are beginning to think this behavior by the Biden family is normal. | ||
| I'm kind of afraid that they're going to say, well, President Biden's a politician. | ||
| I'm going to look at the news with regard to Senator Menendez the last couple weeks, and they're just going to say this is how it works. | ||
| I don't think it's the way it works. | ||
| I think this is... | ||
| This corruption that appears to be, we have all sorts of smoke, maybe not fire, but all sorts of smoke, is almost an historic low for our country. | ||
| And it deserves a strong response from this body. | ||
| Look at Senator Menendez's latest indictment. | ||
| There's no tolerance for putting yourself before your constituents, unless it seems your last name is Biden. | ||
| I applaud my Democrat colleagues who've asked Senator Menendez to resign. | ||
| We know how that ends. | ||
| There'll be a new Democrat replaced with no political risk. | ||
| But here we're talking about the presidency. | ||
| If the response is, well, Hunter Biden was an elected politician, I have to know just what was Hunter Biden selling. | ||
| We can't become none to these facts. | ||
| The allegations are extraordinary. | ||
| In fact, they're not aware of these type of allegations where we have a sitting president accused of buy rate, accused of taking payments, whether it be directly or through his family. | ||
| And these are not empty allegations. | ||
| We continue to have evidence. | ||
| Just look at what's come in just the past couple of days. | ||
| Is President Biden compromised? | ||
| It's particularly relevant because of the interaction between our country and Ukraine, interaction between our country and China. | ||
| It doesn't look good, and the facts demand we continue to investigate. | ||
| Mr. Turley, I want you to really discuss how historic this really is. | ||
| What do you think is the most concerning piece of evidence that you heard of today? | ||
| I think the most concerning, obviously, you have to start with the bribery allegation that was the subject of the FD 1023. | ||
| Testimony that you have to only take that so far because you have a lot of information about a secondhand account. | ||
| But when you put it into the context of this labyrinth of accounts and companies used to transfer money, and you have the statements of Hunter Biden, that's what makes this a credible inquiry. | ||
| And the question is, did the president know? | ||
| Did he encourage this type of corruption? | ||
| And the key here, once again, which is what I stress in the testimony, is you have to begin with a recognition that what Hunter Biden and his associates were doing was corrupt. | ||
| That's what influence peddling is. | ||
| It's a form of corruption that our country globally has combated. | ||
| Now, the only question for an inquiry is whether that body of corruption, which it is, Also encompass the actions or the knowledge of the President of the United States. | ||
| The only way you will be able to get that information is to follow this evidence. | ||
| And what I suggest is you do so without any prejudice. | ||
| You do so without any assumptions. | ||
| In fact, I hope that the President will be able to show that there is no such nexus. | ||
| But you won't get those answers until you ask these questions. | ||
| So we're really obligated to have this inquiry. | ||
| I believe it's your duty to determine if the president is involved in what is a known form of corruption. | ||
| And that's what I believe has already been described. | ||
| I believe many people have accepted that this was influence-peddling in its rawest form. | ||
| Okay, could you elaborate for us? | ||
| The impact bribery of a public official can have on the execution of their duties. | ||
| And how about if it was the president? | ||
| Can you explain why the American public ought to care about this? | ||
| Well, you know, Alexander Hamilton talked about impeachment in Federalist 65 as a violation of the public trust. | ||
| And that's really what this ultimately goes to. | ||
| I'm hoping that there's not much disagreement. | ||
| That public corruption falls within an impeachable offense, because if it does not, then it makes a mockery of what the framers were talking about. | ||
| During the Clinton impeachment, Michael and I testified, and there was a lot of, I think, good faith discussion between us and the other experts as to the executive function theory and what constitutes an impeachable offense. | ||
| I would hope... | ||
| That it would be agreed that if a nexus was established with the president, that he participated in the corruption of influence peddling, that it would be a potential impeachable offense or it would be the basis of an impeachment. | ||
| We have millions of dollars flowing to the Biden family. | ||
| That's been proven overwhelmingly. | ||
| Are you aware of any precedent in this country? | ||
| Where there's been any case of bribery and corruption of a public official or of a president of this magnitude? | ||
| Is there any historical precedent in this country, Ron? | ||
| Gentlemen, Tom's expired, but please answer the question, Mr. Turner. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Certainly. | |
| This has the assumption, as the ranking member has contested, the degree to which all of this money went to the Biden family members. | ||
| That has to be... | ||
| As the ranking member said, it has to be established. | ||
| But no, in terms of the figures, I've been a critic of influence peddling by both Republicans and Democrats for three decades. | ||
| I've been writing about this a long time. | ||
| Influence peddling is the favorite form of corruption in Washington, D.C. And this city is awash with it. | ||
| But have I seen anything of this size and complexity? | ||
| No. | ||
| Just as an observer? | ||
| No. | ||
| But we still need to know the scope of this and whether all of these financial transfers link the president in any regard, and I'm not going to assume that it does. | ||
| Mr. Chairman of the Unanimous Consent Motion, just to introduce an October 2020 article in Politico, where Mikhail Zlochevsky, who was the source of the FD1023 that Mr. Turley just referenced, | ||
| stated that neither he nor anyone else from Burisma ever had any contact with Vice President Biden or people working for him during Hunter Biden's engagement. | ||
| Without objection to order, Chair now recognizes Ms. Brown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| While we sit here just two days away from a complete government shutdown, House Republicans want to distract the American public from their funding failure with a baseless impeachment inquiry lacking facts and foundation. | ||
| This preventable shutdown threatens the livelihood of millions of federal workers, small business owners, seniors, and veterans, all of whom live in the districts of every member on this committee. | ||
| In my home state of Ohio, nearly 60,000 federal workers will either be furloughed or forced to work without pay. | ||
| I cannot overstate the impact this Republican shutdown will have on mothers and babies receiving WIC. | ||
| In Ohio, there are 180,000 women, children, and infants whose benefits will be at risk. | ||
| And in case that statistic isn't sinking in, let me just paint the picture for you. | ||
| A new mother in Cleveland is trying to buy infant formula for her baby at the grocery store next week, only to discover that she has no WIC benefits to access. | ||
| She cannot pay. | ||
| If Speaker McCarthy and our Republican colleagues continue to value their egos... | ||
| Over the well-being of American families, stories like this will become a terrifying reality for millions. | ||
| Yet House Republicans continue to prioritize political warfare over people's welfare. | ||
| The speaker seems committed to promoting political gains and protecting people's benefits. | ||
| Americans and our economy are being held hostage to the demands of the most extreme members of his party. | ||
| It is painfully clear that Speaker McCarthy has once again handed control of the people's house to MAGA extremists. | ||
| Rather than work with Democrats to get us out of the mess they created, Republicans are tripping over themselves trying to distract and deflect the American people with this shameful show. | ||
| The Department of Justice and the FBI under former President Trump spent five, five long years looking into these Republican conspiracy theories and debunked them. | ||
| Repeatedly. | ||
| Speech. | ||
| So now, in a vain attempt to deflect from the chaos and confusion they are causing, House Republicans want to dig them up yet again. | ||
| So, Professor Gerhardt, what would you say is the primary flaw in the House Republicans' claims about President Biden? | ||
| Well, I suppose I could say a lot, but the problem is that the dots are not connected. | ||
| The thing that's been repeated most often in this hearing is Hunter Biden, not President Biden. | ||
| And the point of an impeachment inquiry is not about a president's son. | ||
| It has to be about the president himself. | ||
| And I don't think those dots have been connected. | ||
| There have been lots of assumptions, lots of accusations, but not evidence. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| That just don't exist. | ||
| Instead of fulfilling our duty to govern, my colleagues threaten the government shutdown, dangerous for most and disastrous for our most vulnerable communities. | ||
| So with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield my time to ranking member. | ||
| I would urge you to yield to Mr. Goldman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I will yield to Mr. Goldman. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I thank my colleague. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, I believe you testified before that the 99-page DOJ tax memo gave a full authorization for the charges. | ||
| Is that your testimony? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is what the whistleblowers reported. | |
| Actually, the whistleblowers reported that it was a discretion finding. | ||
| And since you worked in the DOJ tax division, I'm sure you understand that there is full authorization, there is discretion, and there is declination. | ||
| And when they give a discretion determination, that is because there are serious holes and flaws, and they leave it to the discretion of the U.S. attorney whether or not they want to charge it. | ||
| Isn't that correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, not at all. | |
| Discretion is not based on holes and flaws. | ||
| It's based on the ability of that particular district to prosecute that case. | ||
| And in fact, that 99-page memo is referred to several times in the testimony, and only in one time did it mention discretion. | ||
| All the other times, it did not mention discretion at all. | ||
| So you're disputing that it is discretion. | ||
| Are you disputing that it is discretion? | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I'm very disturbed about what I've heard here today. | ||
| There's a saying among country lawyers that if you have the facts, you pound the facts. | ||
| If you don't have the facts, you pound the table. | ||
| When you can't pound the table, I guess some of my Democratic colleagues choose to pound the witnesses. | ||
| That was inexcusable. | ||
| What just happened to this committee, attacking the witnesses personally instead of addressing the merits of the evidence being presented, indicates to me That my Democratic colleagues know the evidence is becoming increasingly conclusive. | ||
| It reminds me of a line from a movie, A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson, you can't handle the truth. | ||
| The evidence will either convict or quit in any criminal proceeding or civil proceeding. | ||
| If there's no wrongdoing, the evidence or the lack of evidence will support that conclusion. | ||
| The problem of the suspicion of wrongdoing is compounded by the withholding of evidence. | ||
| The misrepresentation of the evidence in hand and the obstruction of an investigation but not denying access to information that would be or could be evidence. | ||
| At this point, there's a growing public perception, and it's reflected in the polls, Mr. Chairman, that President Biden, his son Hunter, other family members, and business associates were engaged in some form of criminal activity. | ||
| It is the responsibility of this committee, To pursue the truth and report it to the American people. | ||
| I'm not sure that's what's happening on the other side with my colleagues. | ||
| It is vitally important that our efforts be conducted openly, without prejudice, with no other agenda other than arriving at the truth, regardless of our politics. | ||
| It is vitally important. | ||
| As Professor Turles pointed out, You don't undertake an impeachment inquiry lightly. | ||
| This has profound implications for the future of this country and our ability to govern ourselves. | ||
| We have seen repeatedly obstructive efforts, obstruction efforts, to deny this committee access to information that's material to this investigation. | ||
| Now I want to ask Professor Turley a question. | ||
| In your view, could the promise of foreign access to any official, government official, whether it's the vice president or anybody else, that only materially benefited a family member, could that be influenced by them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, and as I point out in the testimony, Courts have found that various benefits to family members can be attributed as a benefit to the principal. | |
| That has included everything from throwing a golf contest in the favor of a son of a politician to paying for gifts. | ||
| In fact, I was lead counsel in the last impeachment trial for a judge. | ||
| And that was the trial in the U.S. Senate. | ||
| My client, Judge Porteous, was accused, among other things, of benefits going to his family. | ||
| And so there's certainly precedent, not only in criminal cases, but in impeachment cases for making that next. | ||
| Okay, I want to be more specific. | ||
| If Vice President Biden used his office to influence domestic or foreign policy for the financial benefit of his son, even though Vice President Biden may never have received a dime. | ||
| But it resulted in millions of dollars going to his son or his brother or other family members or business associates and used his office to influence either domestic or foreign policy for their benefit. | ||
| Could that be a violation of the public trust? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| In fact, it's perhaps the most quintessential violation of the public trust because you're not acting in the public's interest. | ||
| Government, this country, has declared as corrupt in other countries around the world. | ||
| Sir, I don't want to jump on your time because I know you all have important things to do, but I would like to respond to the attack that you mentioned. | ||
| You may do so. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, sir. | |
| I'd like to explain what that attacked out with nothing else for members of the committee than for my three children here who may be a little surprised by what they just heard. | ||
| As they, I think, know, I've spent my life challenging what is called morals legislation. | ||
| What the Democratic member attacked me for are laws that dictate to others how they should live their lives. | ||
| Some of those laws have been used against gay and lesbian couples. | ||
| They've been used against minorities. | ||
| The individual that the member described, I condemned. | ||
| I represented the sister wives in the case challenging that law on the basis of individual rights. | ||
| The trial court ruled in our favor and struck down that law the first time that type of law had ever been struck down. | ||
| The 10th Circuit later dismissed on technical grounds. | ||
| But I just want to end with one other thing, and that is it's not going to make a difference. | ||
| You know, this has become a pattern of witnesses, whistleblowers, FBI agents, journalists. | ||
| Being attacked in Congress, it won't make any difference. | ||
| It won't change the constitutional standard. | ||
| It won't negate any evidence that you have. | ||
| But at some point, you've got to say, enough! | ||
| You know, that we have to have something, the public has to have something in Congress to look to to have faith. | ||
| And I have to tell you, it's not that I think that absurd attack meant any difference to my children or to the people. | ||
| That are watching. | ||
| It makes a difference to our process. | ||
| Witnesses should not have to... | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I hate to interrupt Professor Turley, but could our witness get equal time then? | ||
| Because we're over a minute over. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman's time has expired. | |
| He responded to the false allegations by your members. | ||
| And I apologize for how you all have been treated. | ||
| I apologize to the American people watching this hearing for the parliamentary stunts. | ||
| That the other side has pulled. | ||
| I think people in America care about public corruption. | ||
| The title of this hearing is an impeachment inquiry. | ||
| And I think that Mr. Turley's done a good job explaining the basis for why we need to take impeachment inquiry and move forward. | ||
| We have led this investigation and now we need the impeachment inquiry status as we move forward to get the information that we have been obstructed by this administration and by this family. | ||
| And that's what the purpose Okay, coming up, it's Clay Higgins. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, what obstruction were you referring to? | ||
| Which is going to be awesome. | ||
| Clay Higgins is a friend of the show. | ||
| He's next. | ||
| So get ready. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I want to say thank you to Mr. Donald Trump for calling. | |
| As it demonstrates the House GOP and Donald Trump's continued attacks on our institutions. | ||
| Oh my god, it's Jen Psaki. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The House GOP's complete inability to govern in a serious manner. | |
| As they're holding this hearing as we see just two days before a potential devastating government shutdown, and the fact that most Republican members on this committee didn't even bother to show up for the hearing this morning. | ||
| Their own star witness said right here in this committee this morning that he doesn't even believe that there's enough evidence to meet the standards needed for impeachment. | ||
| And in doing this, our colleagues across the aisle are making a mockery of this institution and of our Constitution, peddling in conspiracy theories, peddling the conspiracy theories that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump themselves It's outrageous. | ||
| So let's be clear about what this hearing actually is. | ||
| It's an effort to undermine our democracy, to diminish Donald Trump's own two impeachments, his first impeachment for trying to illegally bribe a foreign government to help... | ||
| campaign, and the second for a deadly insurrection in the halls of this capital. | ||
| Deadly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Who died? | |
| Who died? | ||
| That is a lie. | ||
| Because we have the direct evidence from his own social. | ||
| You can see it right here. | ||
| He says, impeach the bum. | ||
| And we also know that he's been directly coordinating with members of this committee, as reported by the New York Times. | ||
| Right here, a member of this committee has been briefing Donald Trump on this inquiry. | ||
| We also know that if Donald Trump doesn't get his way, he wants his loyalists to shut down the government. | ||
| How do we know that? | ||
| Because he posted it right here on his social media. | ||
| And his loyalists in this committee, who are doing his bidding for him today, retweeted it. | ||
| And in fact, it actually says right here that the reason why they want to defund the government and impeach is because this is the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me. | ||
| So folks, this is not a serious inquiry. | ||
| This is not a serious hearing. | ||
| In fact, the witnesses here don't even believe there's enough evidence to impeach. | ||
| And you don't have a serious hair color. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They don't even believe there's enough evidence to impeach. | |
| In fact, they refused to hold a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives because they didn't have enough Republican members who would vote for it. | ||
| That's why we're here today. | ||
| It's outrageous. | ||
| So what is this hearing actually about? | ||
| It's a campaign strategy. | ||
| It's a misuse of official resources. | ||
| It is this committee and loyalists of Donald Trump doing his bidding to bolster his chances of winning back the White House and securing their majority in the next election. | ||
| And in the process to diminish the name of impeachment, which is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, which we do. | ||
| Diminish the name of impeachment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And to make Donald Trump's crimes, including his two impeachments and his 91 criminal indictment counts, look like they're not serious crimes. | |
| When you think about it, it's chilling. | ||
| It's truly chilling. | ||
| It's another attack on our democracy and our institutions. | ||
| It's another attack on fair and free elections. | ||
| And the use of this committee to try and carry it out. | ||
| So I just want to say, I think it's obvious who the grand puppet master is here. | ||
| He tweeted about it on his own social. | ||
| And we... | ||
| He tweeted about it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
...arm the little hands of Mr. Donald Trump, whose fingerprints are all over this hearing and this sham impeachment. | |
| But we know that the American people are smart, that they're not going to be fooled. | ||
| By what's happening here today, and especially as they shut the government down in two days with catastrophic impacts for our communities. | ||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Mr. Higgins from Louisiana for five minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair. | ||
| Here we go, baby. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| Clay Higgins. | ||
| Let us retract from the absurdities of the 21st century Twitter. | ||
| Let's go back to 1787. | ||
| Shall we, Article 2, Section 4, the President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for a conviction of treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. | ||
| High crimes and misdemeanors is not and never has been limited to indictable criminality. | ||
| Mr. Turley, Professor, please tell us briefly, sir. | ||
| What was the actual meaning in 1787 of high crimes and misdemeanors? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this has been a matter of obviously robust debate for many decades. | |
| What we do know is that there were various terms that were offered and were rejected. | ||
| The most famous being maladministration. | ||
| And James Madison was uncomfortable with that. | ||
| But they were also uncomfortable with limiting it, like treason and bribery. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| It was never designed to be limited by... | ||
| By grit of statute. | ||
| Was it Professor Wood-Madison? | ||
| Would Madison argue that, quote-unquote, betrayal of trust to foreign powers is an impeachable offense? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There are references to that type of betrayal of trust. | |
| But also, if you take a look at past impeachments, they have gone to the violation of public trust, including the use of office to perpetuate false accounts or to obstruct this body. | ||
| Agreed. | ||
| So impeachment is a mechanism. | ||
| It's not a criminal proceeding, is it, Professor? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's not. | |
| What I've said previously is that I happen to believe you should start with the criminal code and look at things that would be crimes for others, because those resonate the most. | ||
| And those criminal code violations would be revealed through the investigative effort of the congressional endeavor to inquire. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Moving quickly. | ||
| One of the gentlemen said there's no credibility to this evidence. | ||
| Let me say, as an investigator, there's perhaps no category of evidence that's more credible than bank records. | ||
| And bank records is what we're working with. | ||
| The House Oversight Committee, Judiciary Committee, Ways and Means Committee are investigating highly suspicious Go in. | ||
| House Committee on Ways and Means yesterday identified as Exhibit 202 of the IRS whistleblower investigation. | ||
| This email shows Ms. Wolfe Prohibiting the investigation team from looking into political figure one. | ||
| Let me clarify that during that investigation, political figure one was a pseudonym agreed upon by the investigative team, the FBI, the DOJ, an IRS investigator. | ||
| Political figure one is not a pseudonym created by Republicans or Democrats. | ||
| Political figure one is President Biden. | ||
| It's Joe Biden. | ||
| Leslie Wolf. | ||
| As a priority, someone needs to redraft attachment fee. | ||
| There should be nothing about political figure one in here. | ||
| This is a response to an email delivered by Joshua Wilson, FBI agent, that said please see the task draft. | ||
| Blue Star Strategies is a longtime Democrat lobbying firm that Hunter Biden used to put pressure on U.S. government officials to end the investigation and protect charisma. | ||
| The Department of Justice was investigating Blue Star for these activities and allowed to retroactively register as a foreign agent. | ||
| Today, no one has been held accountable at Blue Star. | ||
| That happened during 2020, just months before your presidential election, America. | ||
| You should be very concerned about this. | ||
| Mr. Turley, based upon the constitutional parameters of the House of Representatives, do you agree that our Oversight Committee, Judiciary Committee, and Ways and Means Committee should be judiciously investigating reasonable suspicion of impeachable actions by President Joe Biden? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I do. | |
| I think it is your duty to get answers to these questions and to see if the president was involved in what I think is a confirmed, corrupt, influence-peddling effort. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| My time has expired. | ||
| I yield. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I want to just begin by recapping for the American people what we've seen so far today. | ||
| My Democratic colleagues have done a great job of showing that there's absolutely zero evidence looking President Joe Biden to any wrongdoing. | ||
| Zero. | ||
| None. | ||
| This hearing is a complete waste of time, two days before a MAGA government shutdown. | ||
| And we also know that Hunter Biden never held any sort of public office. | ||
| and there is no evidence that he ever influenced any kind of policy in the White House. | ||
| There's no evidence that he and his father's finances were ever linked and we've spoken spoken to many witnesses. | ||
| Oh my God. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The witnesses here actually have any direct evidence. | |
| There's any sort of wrongdoing that was repeated here by these witnesses. | ||
| So instead we're back to falling on MAGA conspiracy theories that Rudy Giuliani parroted over and over again. | ||
| This farce is all about House Republicans trying to reelect their beloved leader, Donald Trump. | ||
| And what I want to know is why we're not actually investigating real family corruption. | ||
| They want to attack President Biden's family, who actually never worked in the White House, which is incredibly hypocritical. | ||
| Yet we haven't yet talked about these guys that actually worked in the White House. | ||
| And in fact, I want to talk about Jared Kushner, who's right over here. | ||
| We know that Jared Kushner, who's Donald Trump's son-in-law, was given enormous power in the White House. | ||
| When Jared joined the White House... | ||
| He was so unfit and unqualified and with so many conflicts of interest, he couldn't even get a security clearance. | ||
| His father-in-law, Donald Trump, had to intervene overriding national security officials. | ||
| We also know that just months after Jared left the White House, the Saudi royal family gave him $2 billion, with a B, into the Kushner hedge fund. | ||
| And right now, Jared is pocketing an additional $25 million a year in fees. | ||
| This is a man who was put at the head of Middle East policy. | ||
| We know he personally intervened to give the Saudis a $110 billion arms deal that was opposed by actually folks all across the government. | ||
| He supported the Saudis with their brutal war in Yemen, even after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist, of course, who was an American resident. | ||
| The Saudi crown prince bragged other heads of state that Kushner, and I quote, was in Even Trump's first Secretary of State complained that this is inappropriate. | ||
| Now, Jared delivered for the Saudis over and over again, and he was rewarded. | ||
| Even advisors for the Crown Prince advised against the $2 billion hedge fund investment, yet he went forward anyways. | ||
| So we know that Jared Kushner, a senior White House aide and Donald Trump's son-in-law, was doing favors for a foreign government. | ||
| Now, this is actually an enormous family scandal. | ||
| I think Chris Christie put it well when he said that the grift from this family, the Trump crime family, in my opinion, is breathtaking. | ||
| You also need to take my word for it. | ||
| This is actually what our committee chairman actually said about the Kushners. | ||
| I'm just quoting our chairman. | ||
| I have been vocal that I think what Kushner did crossed the line of ethics. | ||
| Now, Mr. Chairman, I completely agree. | ||
| See, if we're not too busy, maybe next week during the Republican MAGA shutdown, we can actually have a hearing with Jared Kushner, which... | ||
| Is clearly in a very corrupt arms deal here, a deal around his investment firm. | ||
| And the chairman can also be involved in that since he also thinks there's problems. | ||
| Now, we do know today that we're not here because of any wrongdoing of President Biden. | ||
| This is all part of Donald Trump's campaign. | ||
| And his most extreme allies, including some members of this committee, are now retaliating. | ||
| In fact, some members have been trying to impeach the president since day one. | ||
| Now, this is a tweet here. | ||
| I'm going to read it. | ||
| It says, two years ago, I introduced articles to impeach Joe Biden on his first full day in office. | ||
| We will impeach Biden, bolded with an exclamation point. | ||
| You see the actual resolution here. | ||
| So we have the receipts to prove it. | ||
| There really is no reason why. | ||
| They don't care why they want to impeach the president, but they've been trying to do it now for years. | ||
| Here you have, of course, a member of this oversight committee posting about introducing articles of impeachment on President Biden's very first day in office. | ||
| And now the Speaker of the House is empowering these people in a desperate attempt to keep his job. | ||
| Ultimately, the person pulling the strings here is Donald Trump, a dangerous man facing federal and state indictments who's out for revenge. | ||
| And he's been doing this his whole career. | ||
| And I want to show you a second tweet again by a member of this committee. | ||
| They're trying to expunge Donald Trump's impeachment, as you can see here, which is also unconstitutional. | ||
| I'm going to read this tweet. | ||
| Expunge the wrongful Trump impeachment. | ||
| Impeach criminal Biden. | ||
| These are political stunts to appeal to an extremist base, and they seize control of this conference. | ||
| We don't act. | ||
| They'll threaten our democracy again. | ||
| This impeachment is a farce with no evidence, and with that, I yield back. | ||
| Great job reading your script, Mr. Actor Man. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I would just add to the gentleman's remarks that Jared Kushner was a key player in the historic Abraham... | ||
| Is this a point of order? | ||
| Excuse me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Sessions from Texas for five minutes. | |
| Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. | ||
| Mr. Gerhardt, you had been asked a question earlier that I heard a quick reply to, and the answer to the question was about the timing of a government shutdown and an impeachment. | ||
| You quickly responded, never. | ||
| Do you want to revise or extend that remark about the timing of a government shutdown and an impeachment occurring at about the same time? | ||
| And you said, never. | ||
| I understand the question. | ||
| And if you're talking about 2019... | ||
| I am. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There was not a shutdown. | |
| There was not. | ||
| There's not now. | ||
| I understand, but... | ||
| There's not now. | ||
| So, the people on this side are simply taking advantage of your answer. | ||
| In fact, the indictment, the impeachment of Donald Trump was December 18th, 2019, and then the president signed the funding of the government December 21st, 2019, three days later. | ||
| So, the question that you were asked, perhaps you responded to correctly, never. | ||
| But in fact, there is a nexus that suggests that people on this side of the dais are taken the wrong way. | ||
| Second, Mr. Chairman, I also find that some of our members are talking about baseless accusations of a government shutdown. | ||
| All you have to do is go to Google Ohio to apply it for WIC, which was the supposition brought up. | ||
| Gathered in all 88 Ohio counties. | ||
| It is run by the state of Ohio, not the federal government. | ||
| I think that we need to be careful when we make accusations here. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, you have a history of understanding tax implications and inside the Department of Justice. | ||
| These are serious matters, and when they do... | ||
| I will not. | ||
| The implications of this endeavor that we are attempting to understand is decision making inside the Department of Justice. | ||
| And that inside the decision making, we've already heard back a number of times how the Department of Justice did not move forward in compliance, I believe, to their job to make a determination. | ||
| Whether the facts would or should be taken further with President Clinton, the FBI went and actually interviewed the President and the Vice President about these matters and other people in the White House, and President Clinton lost his law license over that, And it ended up that there was an impeachment from the House side. | ||
| Can you please talk about what should be done from normal and regular Department of Justice officials to see whether this has occurred and whether we are entitled to ask questions about that investigation from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the DOJ. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Sessions. | ||
| I think you're more than entitled. | ||
| I think that you're obligated to look into the allegations that the whistleblowers have brought. | ||
| Whistleblowers were very detailed in the investigative steps that they took, in those that they wanted to take but were prevented from taking, but would have taken in any other investigation. | ||
| We don't have a window into where the roadblock was thrown. | ||
| We don't know who threw it. | ||
| Would you think it would be proper for this committee to bring those individuals and to properly vet them about that? | ||
| Or is that the duty of the Department of Justice through the Federal Bureau of Investigation to get that done? | ||
| Well, I think it's your obligation. | ||
| We know that the whistleblowers tried to remedy the obstruction from within the Internal Revenue Service and got no backup at all. | ||
| They were left out to dry. | ||
| Does that include asking for metadata? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| For example, the WhatsApp message where Hunter Biden says that he's sitting next to his father and is in the process of shaking down a Chinese businessman. | ||
| The agents wanted to find out whether that was a true statement and they could have found out. | ||
| By what authority? | ||
| Without objection to order. | ||
| The articles which I had previously provided to this committee in testimony. | ||
| Without objection to order. | ||
| I'd like to offer a press release from the same Southern District of New York that you introduced for Lev Parnas that's entitled, Devin Archer Sentenced to a Year and a Day in Prison for the Fraudulent Issuance and Sale of More Than $60 Million of Bonds. | ||
| Devin Archer, Hunter Biden's Business Partner and Best Friend. | ||
| That's correct. | ||
| Your star witness. | ||
| Yes, your star witness. | ||
| chair recognizes uh mr mr gomez from california for five minutes All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Here we go. | ||
|
unidentified
|
One of the things I want to kind of stress is that from the very beginning of this Congress, the Republicans had one thing in mind. | |
| Let's get Joe Biden. | ||
| Let's get Joe Biden and let's find the evidence that showed he did something wrong. | ||
| But when the evidence didn't exist, they would make up facts. | ||
| You can't wear a tie? | ||
|
unidentified
|
To an extent that it was honestly mind-boggling. | |
| I want to focus on one part first. | ||
| The Republicans keep pointing out 20 shell companies. | ||
| Of the Biden family. | ||
| These are actually 20 shell companies of Hunter Biden. | ||
| Okay, so anytime they say the Biden family, they're really saying Hunter Biden, because there hasn't been a connection between Joe Biden and these companies. | ||
| To an extent, do we have the slides up? | ||
| First slide is, that's not the slide, but I'll show it. | ||
| Washington Post, August 1793, and it says how Republicans overhyped the findings of the Hunter-Biden probe. | ||
| And it's specifically when it comes to these 20 shell companies, as they call them. | ||
| They were actually overhyped, and they gave them three Pinocchios. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I would like to get M.S. consent to enter this into the record. | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| Next. | ||
| So they keep focusing on these 20 companies. | ||
| What is this guy on? | ||
| This guy's tweaking. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Reveals 700 pages yesterday. | |
| It was really dramatic, right? | ||
| They used Section 6103 to get these returns, and they say, hey, we're going to show that they did something wrong. | ||
| The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Adrian Smith, who also serves on this committee or sits on this committee, presented... | ||
| When asked a simple question, they pointed out that this actually came, the WhatsApp message of Hunter Biden allegedly was sent in 2017 when Joe Biden wasn't even president. | ||
| When Joe Biden wasn't even running for president. | ||
| So unanimous consent to enter another article. | ||
| By Yahoo News, NBC reporter destroys GOP lawmakers' evidence against Joe Biden without even trying. | ||
| Without objection to order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. | |
| So let's dig into these 20 businesses. | ||
| Oh, 20. 20 companies. | ||
| That's a lot of companies for an average American like myself. | ||
| You know, I got a W-2. | ||
| You know, I filed my income taxes. | ||
| My wife and I have simple returns. | ||
| But when it came to President Trump, how many companies did he have? | ||
| Anybody want to take a guess? | ||
| How many companies did Mr. Trump have? | ||
| Not saying their best. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have no idea the number, but I know they all did. | |
| I reclaim my time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I reclaim my time. | ||
| You can't even ask me a question, right? | ||
| He had over 500 companies. | ||
| No, I will not. | ||
| He also had over 500 companies. | ||
| Over 500 companies. | ||
| I looked at the tax returns. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because I was on the Ways and Means Committee and I got to actually dig into it. | ||
| Over 500 companies. | ||
| Actually between 517 to 543 companies. | ||
| And Republicans had no concern about that. | ||
| When they were structured in a way, they were almost like a set of Russian nesting dolls. | ||
| Each one hiding the existence and who controlled the others. | ||
| But did Republicans bring it up? | ||
| No. | ||
| Did they have any concerns? | ||
| No. | ||
| But what happened last week or this week? | ||
| Let's take a guess. | ||
| A judge said that President Trump committed fraud, business fraud, for inflating the value of his net worth and his companies. | ||
| But when it comes to the Republicans, they have no problem with that. | ||
| They have no problem. | ||
| They don't want to dig into that. | ||
| When Trump controlled these 517 companies, when it came to Hunter Biden controlling 20, oh, we see a direct line to Joe Biden. | ||
| So that's what the problem is, is that they're cherry-picking facts to connect it to Joe Biden, and when they don't have facts, they make it up, as they did earlier today when they put up tweets. | ||
| Or text messages that were not connected. | ||
| So the point is, everything they're doing is to muddy the waters. | ||
| And I think it's disgraceful. | ||
| Because when it comes to a president that committed fraud, a president that caused an insurrection, a president that also sold our government's national interest to the highest bidder, silence. | ||
| With that, I yield back my time. | ||
| Did you yield a quick question about the President's son's 20 companies? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Chair now recognizes Mr. Biggs from Arizona for five minutes. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Based Biggs. | ||
| I'm going to put up on the board in just a second, but this is the entire transcript of the Devon Archer testimony I submitted to the record. | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| So, in this particular The colloquy that's going on highlighted up there. | ||
| You'll see that Mr. Archer says, let's start at the beginning. | ||
| Let's go somewhere else. | ||
| He says, the question is, did Hunter talk about how bringing his dad, Joe Biden, either to Ukraine or using his dad as vice president would add value in the eyes of Burisma officials? | ||
| Answer, yes. | ||
| How did he come up? | ||
| He says, well, we were business partners. | ||
| She came up. | ||
| We're business partners. | ||
| We're business partners. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| What kind of leverage was Hunter trying to get by using his dad? | ||
| Answer by Devin. | ||
| I think it's more defensive. | ||
| You know, defensive leverage that the value is there in his work. | ||
| Also in this same document, I asked him, I said, the brand. | ||
| He said, what is it? | ||
| You keep talking about the Biden brand. | ||
| I said, is it Dr. Jill? | ||
| Brother Jim? | ||
| No. | ||
| He looks at me like I'm an idiot. | ||
| He says, of course it's Joe Biden. | ||
| Of course it's Joe Biden. | ||
| Then you go back and you see Tony Bobulinski. | ||
| What does he say? | ||
| Quote, the Biden family aggressively leveraged the Biden family name to make millions of dollars from foreign entities, even though some were from communist-controlled China. | ||
| And who is the Biden family asset? | ||
| Is it Dr. Jill? | ||
| No. | ||
| Brother Jim? | ||
| No. | ||
| Any of the grandkids that got money from foreign companies? | ||
| No. | ||
| None of those folks. | ||
| None of those folks. | ||
| Then you get the stuff released from Ways and Means yesterday. | ||
| This is Hunter Biden saying to his brother, his uncle Jim, BS Jim, all around BS. | ||
| Explain to me one thing Tony Bobulinski brings to my table that I so desperately need that I'm willing to sign over my family's brand. | ||
| What's the brand? | ||
| Joe Biden. | ||
| And pretty much the rest of my business life. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because that's the only product I got. | ||
| Joe Biden, the vice president at that time. | ||
| It's plain English. | ||
| I'm cleaning it up a little bit. | ||
| There's a lot of swear words in there. | ||
| Why would I give this marginal bully the keys to my family's only asset? | ||
| Oh, okay. | ||
| So, you know, but we're told that there's nothing linking them. | ||
| So I've got to ask this question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Turley, I'm going to ask you a question. | |
| If the brand and what you're selling is Joe Biden, the then vice president, and if Joe Biden or his family is receiving some kind of benefit by the sale of access or, you know, I'll leave it there, selling of access or even the illusion of access to Joe Biden. | ||
| What does that lead you to conclude? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, if you look at actual cases I've cited in my testimony, benefits to family members can be viewed as the benefits of the principal. | |
| So there's not much debate about that. | ||
| The issue of the inquiry is whether there's been progress in the last few weeks and that many people after the Archer testimony said, yeah, I get it. | ||
| It's influence peddling. | ||
| Some have said it's the illusion of access. | ||
| That's the new defense. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| But I think that calling it by its correct name is important, and it is a form of corruption. | ||
| The benefits to the family members can be attributed to the principle, even under the higher standard of criminal cases. | ||
| So what remains is the question is, did the president know that, direct that, participate in that? | ||
| We know that he made 20 calls to business associates. | ||
| We know he's having dinners with those associates, which leads me to the follow-up question, which I think is critical here, because these guys are looking for the gold bars of the cash stuffed in the Menendez coat. | ||
| That doesn't happen very often, in my experience, having tried a lot of cases. | ||
| So my question for you is, tell us about when you have circumstantial evidence, vis-a-vis direct evidence, what's its value? | ||
| Can you rest a conviction on circumstantial evidence? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You can. | |
| One of the things I point out, though, in my testimony is the Supreme Court has narrowed some of the elements on things like bribery, denial of honest services. | ||
| Those elements are now narrower than they were. | ||
| But it is notable in the Menendez indictment that they brought the conspiracy on honest services, that they still believe that these types of gifts obviously can be based on a conspiracy theory. | ||
| But you're clearly correct. | ||
| I mean, if the allegations against Senator Menendez are true, that's really sort of old-school bribery. | ||
| Not since Jefferson and his freezer have we seen that type of raw evidence. | ||
| Today, it's a lot more sophisticated. | ||
| I think everyone in this room has to acknowledge that influence peddling is the favorite form of corruption in Washington. | ||
| I think that's unassailable. | ||
| And it's much more sophisticated. | ||
| Then handing over gold bars or whatever is alleged in the Menendez case. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I have a document I'd like to get in. | ||
| I appreciate that my colleague trusts the American people. | ||
| And the CNN poll that says the majority of Americans believe Joe Biden as vice president was involved with his son's business dealings. | ||
| Submit that for the record. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I have another unanimous consent motion. | ||
| I'd move with unanimous consent to introduce... | ||
| An order from the Supreme Court of the State of New York from Tuesday, where the Trump Organization was found liable for fraud, and specifically on page 28, where there's a paragraph entitled, quote, the Trump brand premium that was increased the value of Trump assets by 15 or 30 percent, according to the Trump Organization. | ||
| Without objection to order, Chair now recognizes Mr. Frost from Florida for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| An impeachment inquiry is a grave undertaking that is supposed to be in response to evidence of a crime. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, you have questions. | ||
| Many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in this hearing have questions. | ||
| But questions are not the basis for evidence. | ||
| Mr. Turley, on September 1st, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that he would not launch a fake impeachment inquiry, a sham impeachment inquiry. | ||
| But then on September 12th, just 12 days later, He completely changed his mind. | ||
| My question is why? | ||
| In those 12 days, did hard evidence appear that clearly and directly links the President of the United States, Joe Biden, to a crime? | ||
| That pushed the Speaker to make the decision. | ||
| The courts have said you don't have to have that vote on the floor. | ||
| I think it is a best practice. | ||
| But I'm very interested in those 12 days. | ||
| And we know you're not a fact witness and you're talking about things that are already public. | ||
| But is there anything that came up in those 12 days that linked the President of the United States to a crime? | ||
| Yes or no? | ||
| I don't have any recollection of those 12 days. | ||
| Yeah, nothing. | ||
| I can tell you it's nothing. | ||
| And we've heard even from you that this is why we have this impeachment inquiry. | ||
| But let's be clear. | ||
| This inquiry has been going on since the day we got here. | ||
| Since the day I was sworn in at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night, this impeachment inquiry started. | ||
| Let's pull back the curtain on what's really going on. | ||
| There's no evidence of crime, only desperation and political pressure. | ||
| This is what's going on. | ||
| The far right called for the sham impeachment hearing with no evidence at the beginning of this year when we first got started. | ||
| This impeachment inquiry has been going on. | ||
| This is not the first hearing we've had in relation to this. | ||
| On September 1st, the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, says, no, we're not going to do that. | ||
| We don't have the evidence. | ||
| We don't have the votes for it to pass on the House floor. | ||
| We're not going to do it. | ||
| A good decision, in my opinion. | ||
| But then, just 12 days later, Twelve precious days later, something happens. | ||
| I'm not sure what, but something happens because then the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, comes out and says, yes, we will do an impeachment inquiry. | ||
| So what happened between these twelve days? | ||
| It's very simple. | ||
| Three threats from members of his own caucus at the direction of former President Donald Trump. | ||
| Changed his mind. | ||
| Number one, the threat to force a vote on impeachment, which would lose on the House floor and be another embarrassment in the long list of embarrassments this Congress for the Speaker of the House. | ||
| Number two, they would threat to shut down the government, something that will happen in just two days. | ||
| And number three, and this is the one that really got to him, they said... | ||
| You about to lose your job. | ||
| And they said, we will remove you as Speaker from the House. | ||
| And that scared him so much that Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House of the United States of Representatives, third in line of the presidency, completely caved due to the threats of people within his own caucus. | ||
| This fake impeachment is based on desperate political calculation, not any evidence. | ||
| And Mr. Chairman, you say this hearing is to establish the basis. | ||
| For this fake sham impeachment hearing, but these witnesses are not giving us any basis or giving us any evidence or giving us any solutions. | ||
| I have to stop. | ||
| I reclaim my time. | ||
| I reclaim my time. | ||
| These witnesses are not giving any answers. | ||
| They're just asking more questions. | ||
| We have one witness who has a lot of questions, Ms. O 'Connor. | ||
| Dubinsky, one witness who knows something about accounting but has no real involvement in what's going on. | ||
| And Mr. Turley is stopping here on his way to his next Fox News hit. | ||
| This is not a serious inquiry. | ||
| And impeachment is something that's very serious. | ||
| And we have to ensure that we focus on the wants and needs of the American people. | ||
| This is all for nothing. | ||
| Half the crowd is left. | ||
| There's no line outside. | ||
| The goal here to distract from the government shutdown is not going to work. | ||
| And to the speaker, I have to say, you're being played by these extremists and Donald Trump. | ||
| It's costing us our economy. | ||
| And this entire fake impeachment inquiry isn't about the United States. | ||
| It's about Hunter Biden. | ||
| And the only thing the president can be guilty of here is being a father. | ||
| I love that one. | ||
| I told you that's what they do. | ||
| From Florida, yielded back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yielded to the vice ranking member. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| And I'll claim some of that extra time back as well. | ||
| You know, much of the Republican case relied on words from Hunter Biden. | ||
| Hunter Biden said this. | ||
| Hunter Biden said that. | ||
| Therefore, case closed. | ||
| There's something here. | ||
| Professor Gerhardt, we know, I believe it's wide knowledge with the public, that Hunter Biden sadly was dealing with substance misuse disorder, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct. | |
| He's been under indictment, correct? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Is this a reliable witness that you would deem? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Probably not. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Chair now recognizes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Armstrong, you seek recognition. | |
| Motions? | ||
| Yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
One is a hearing notice from December 4... | |
| Hold on. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| June 10, 2019, with an impeachment hearing with Joyce Vance, who was not a fact witness, Barbara McQuaid, who is not a fact witness, and 70s Storytime with John Dean. | ||
| Secondly, there's another unanimous consent motion for a hearing notice in judiciary with... | ||
| Two witnesses here just a week before we voted on impeachment in 2019 with Michael Gerhardt and Jonathan Turley. | ||
| Appreciate you both being here very much, but you were not fact witnesses at that point in time. | ||
| And the Webster's definition of hypocrisy. | ||
| Without objection to the order. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I request unanimous. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I request unanimous consent to enter an article into the record. | ||
| Dated January 6, 2019, a member of this own committee the day after she was sworn in came into Congress, and this article says Dem split in response to her words, impeach the mother effer the day after she was sworn in. | ||
| Some might even say these kinds of comments, not only are they hypocritical by the left in their arguments today, but that this is an embarrassment to the time and people of this country. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| With that objection, so ordered. | ||
| Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I'm afraid my friend, the general lady from South Carolina, just engaged in personalities against a fellow member of the committee. | ||
| What she entered in the record was, I believe it was Ms. Tlaib's. | ||
| Well, it was the commentary that accompanied it that I'm referring to. | ||
| It was an article from January 6, 2018. | ||
| Dems the line in response to impeach the mother effer comment by a member of this committee. | ||
| Right, it was the commentary, and in any event, it doesn't make any difference. | ||
| No, she said it. | ||
| She actually said it. | ||
| No, but Rule 17 said... | ||
| She said impeach the mother effer. | ||
| The commentary of what is presented. | ||
| The article title is... | ||
| The general lady in response to the mother effer comment. | ||
| Let's get on with it. | ||
| I mean, you know, the government's about to shut down. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The mischaracterization of what this hearing is about by my colleagues on the other side is astounding. | |
| Throughout the presidency of Joe Biden, the White House has attempted to claim that the president did not talk to Hunter about his business dealings. | ||
| Joe Biden even said during the 2020 presidential debate that no members of his family received money from China. | ||
| He said, and I quote, The White House strategy has been deny, deny, deny, lie, and then counterattack, but the evidence and the facts have forced the White House to change its story time and time again. | ||
| The White House handlers continue to shift the goalposts, and President Biden continues to lie. | ||
| How? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can President Biden continue to maintain that Hunter's private business was simply that, private, when it's clear from bank records, emails, and testimony that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter's pay-to-play schemes and crooked foreign business dealings? | |
| This image shows an email between Hunter Biden and his business associates stating the setup of equity in a Chinese-owned energy venture. | ||
| This particular business deal James Gilliard. | ||
| Tony Bobulinski and Rob Walker on separate occasions, along with other Hunter business partners, have confirmed what this email said, that they were all getting a cut. | ||
| Who else was getting a cut? | ||
| What is the date of that email, sir? | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is my time. | |
| I'm just asking the date. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is my time. | |
| Mr. Chairman, I ask that my time be restored. | ||
| Please restore Mr. LaTurner's time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Who else was getting a cut? | ||
| According to this email, 10% was going to the big guy. | ||
| What I'm sure my colleagues on the other side are asking themselves is, who's the big guy? | ||
| Well, let me tell you. | ||
| We learned in the FBI's FD-1023 that Zlochevsky called Joe Biden the big guy. | ||
| Tony Bobulinski also has corroborated that Joe Biden is the big guy. | ||
| Rob Walker, an IRS whistleblower, say that Joe Biden is the big guy. | ||
| And finally, The Justice Department obstructed investigators in Delaware who wanted to look into, you guessed it, the big guy. | ||
| Listen, folks, it is obvious. | ||
| Joe Biden is the big guy. | ||
| And so what do we have here? | ||
| We have the president saying that he had nothing to do with, that Hunter Biden and no one in the family profited from China. | ||
| And we have evidence here that the big guy was getting 10%. | ||
| Let me read you a definition of a trendy word here lately. | ||
| Gaslighting. | ||
| It's a form of psychological manipulation in which an abuser attempts to gain power and control over the other person by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and intuition. | ||
| I would say to the American people, look at the evidence before you and make a judgment and do not allow the White House... | ||
| Or our colleagues on the other side of the aisle try to convince you that what you're seeing isn't the truth, trying to convince you that you're crazy. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, you have extensive experience as an expert witness and consultant in the areas of white-collar crime, financial fraud and corruption. | ||
| Is it characteristic of these types of crimes that actors hide behind nicknames or other pseudonyms to mask their identity? | ||
| It's very common. | ||
| What about this first email image is characteristic of financial crimes that you have investigated or provided expert testimony on in the past? | ||
| Well, typically you'll see code names used and money is being paid to somebody under that code name. | ||
| And that's how these processes work. | ||
| Let me ask you something. | ||
| You're very experienced. | ||
| When conducting an investigation, if your boss prevented you from taking investigative steps, how would you react? | ||
| How would it affect your findings? | ||
| First, it would be extremely troubling. | ||
| If I was told not to continue to investigate something, and if I was put in that position, I'd probably withdraw from the investigation. | ||
| Has the Department of Justice ever restricted any of your investigative steps? | ||
| No, they have not. | ||
| That's amazing. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. | ||
| Chairman, I recognize Ms. Lee from Pennsylvania for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Three hours and 45 or so minutes into this, the Republicans' own witnesses have confirmed that they have seen no evidence of any evidence. | ||
| I think that if my Republican colleagues had a so-called smoking gun, they would have presented it by now and would have talked about it. | ||
| Can the gentlelady read a bank statement, an email, a text message? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're claiming my time. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Instead, we're sitting here with no fact witnesses and no evidence in this sham so-called impeachment to distract from their inability to fulfill their basic duty to fund and run our government. | ||
| Republicans know the American people don't want their shutdown. | ||
| So instead, the Republicans on this committee are attempting to divert and distract the American people's attention by spending taxpayer dollars on this sham impeachment hearing two days before they shut the government down in hopes that the media, and I don't just mean Fox News, will fall for their scheme. | ||
| In fact, in Chairman Comer's district, Republicans' shutdown will cost 8,937 of his constituents their paychecks. | ||
| In Jim Jordan's district, Republicans'shutdown will cost $3,939 of his constituents their paychecks. | ||
| In Marjorie Taylor Greene's district, Republicans'shutdown will cost $6,306 of her constituents their paychecks. | ||
| In Lauren Boebert's district, Republicans'shutdowns will cost $6,306 of her constituents Democrats are the party of shutdowns. | ||
| You guys love shutdowns. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much. | |
| And Lauren Boebert's district, Republican shutdown will cost 9,016 of her constituents their paycheck. | ||
| And Paul Gosar's Arizona district, Republican shutdown will cost 12,349 of his constituents their paycheck. | ||
| And Byron Donald, 3,235 folks paycheck. | ||
| And Andy Biggs, 8,433. | ||
| And Lisa McClain, 7,286. | ||
| And Scott Perry's Pennsylvania district and the Capitol. | ||
| Of my Commonwealth, Republicans' shutdown will cost 5,445 of his constituents who will lose their paycheck. | ||
| Indeed, when you add it all up, Republicans' shutdown will cost 217,583 of their constituents on this committee's paychecks, their income, for who knows how long. | ||
| Let that sink in for a second. | ||
| Those are our mothers, our fathers, caretakers, brothers, sisters, moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, friends, neighbors, beloved community members, veterans, who won't know how their food or medicine will be paid for or where their rent money is coming from. | ||
| Many of them vote Republican, but I bet you not one of them cares more about Hunter Biden's laptop or helping Kevin McCarthy keep his gig as leader or speaker of his dysfunctional caucus than they care about receiving their paycheck and making their ends meet. | ||
| And so the Republicans on this committee are betting that we'll spend this hearing engaging and partisan bickering over their favorite buzzwords rather than talking about how the MAGA shutdown will crush all our constituents. | ||
| To be honest, I don't quite care about a private citizen hunter whom the proper authorities are dealing with or the cable news culture war distractions. | ||
| I care about the 7 million babies, children, mothers across this country who after Sunday will lose access to food and formula. | ||
| Over 10,000 in my district alone. | ||
| I care about 300,000 families of 20,000 veterans who after Sunday could face eviction from their homes. | ||
| Rare diseases and cancer patients whose experimental trials will be delayed for months. | ||
| And I care about our seniors unable to get help with Social Security and Medicare. | ||
| And make no mistake, their attacks are targeted, both in who's behind them and who are going to be hurt most. | ||
| The most marginalized folks bear the brunt of these MAGA Republicans attacks. | ||
| Black folks, brown folks, trans folks, poor folks, disabled folks. | ||
| We've had two hearings on the infant formula shortage on the subcommittee chaired by Congresswoman McClain, yet with the 320,000 babies, women and children in her home state of Michigan, about to go hungry due to her party shutdown, it seems like my Republican colleagues only care about an issue when they can point the finger in another direction, much like what's going on in this embarrassment of a hearing today. | ||
| Mr. Gearheart, in one of your recent op-eds, and you have repeated it here, you mentioned that a good test for assessing the constitutionality of a governmental action is to... | ||
| I think we can safely say that this inquiry would fail that neutrality test. | ||
| And since I don't have time, I think we can say that we are here, America, in this sham hearing, prioritizing the political needs of the Republican Party, pushing a lie for Donald Trump as you go hungry and you lose your homes. | ||
| Shameful. | ||
| At the request of the witnesses, we're going to take a 10-minute recess. | ||
| Why so angry? | ||
| Jeez! | ||
| You're going to have an aneurysm, lady. | ||
| Unbelievable. | ||
| Calm down. | ||
| You've heard on this program quite a bit of flamethrowers, and the Republicans have shoved, shoved down the throats. | ||
| Of the Democrats, the evidence of Biden crimes, using text messages, using the actual evidence directly from the Bidens. | ||
| Unlike Democrats who are engaging in ad hominem attacks. | ||
| But Donald Trump! | ||
| But Trump! | ||
| Try and do... | ||
| They should ban the word Trump at this. | ||
| Just ban the word Trump. | ||
| See if they can make a single argument. | ||
| Every single argument. | ||
| And they've all been fed these lines. | ||
| the best part about watching these hearings and being able to cut between them is to understand that Democrats don't have the capacity for independent thought. | ||
| They're hive mind creatures. | ||
| I don't know what they have. | ||
| High School Musical 2, okay? | ||
| It looks like the cast. | ||
| I have not heard about most of these members of Congress. | ||
| They're giving them these little positions in order to try and boost their notoriety and name recognition. | ||
| Every one of them reading their little script there. | ||
| Shaking, reading their script. | ||
| Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| It looks like Donald Trump. | ||
| Orange man is bad. | ||
| Bad because orange. | ||
| Orange is bad, and we don't like the color of his skin. | ||
| And so we should probably ban the skin color orange. | ||
| Send him back to the Orange Grove, with which he came. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And this is clown car stuff, including the guy without a tie. | ||
| I think it was Garcia, who came rolling up. | ||
| I didn't have his notes in order or anything. | ||
| It is an abysmal car wreck for Democrats. | ||
| The headlines that are coming out of this are not good. | ||
| The This is BS line is just absolutely spectacular from Nancy Mace. | ||
| And we have, by the way, a number of the highlights lined up. | ||
| And we'll continue this broadcast. | ||
| We've been live for four hours. | ||
| Why the heck not? | ||
| We have... | ||
| Everyone seems to be watching the comment section blowing up, so we might as well get going. | ||
| Now, you've been hearing a lot about financial crimes. | ||
| Let me tell you... | ||
| That Joe Biden and his regime is not who you should be trusting with your financial future. | ||
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| All right, ladies and gentlemen, we have some of the best exchanges here from the hearing. | ||
| One of my absolute favorites was Byron Donalds. | ||
| Byron Donalds went through the text messages from Hunter Biden to his various family members about Joe Biden's criminality. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's go. | |
| This is a text message. | ||
| This is a text message between... | ||
| It's going to Naomi Biden. | ||
| That's what this one is. | ||
| Hold on, let me get my stuff back. | ||
| There we go. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| This is the WhatsApp text message between Jim Biden and Hunter Biden. | ||
| In this text message, it clearly says, anyway, we can talk later, but you've been drawn into something purely for the purpose of protecting dad. | ||
| This is between Hunter Biden and Jim Biden. | ||
| Last time I checked, the father of Jim Biden and Joe Biden has now passed away. | ||
| So I'm assuming this is Hunter Biden saying to Jim Biden, the president's brother, that you've been brought in this for the sole purpose of protecting dad. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, do you think that this text message would lead this committee to get further information about the business dealings of Hunter Biden and how that actually links to Jim Biden, the president's brother, and why they are so concerned with protecting? | ||
| Dad, a.k.a. | ||
| Joe Biden, a.k.a. | ||
| the President of the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Next slide, please. | ||
| This is a text message between Hunter Biden and Naomi Biden. | ||
| And this one is a famous one. | ||
| Everybody knows this one. | ||
| This is a famous one that says, I hope you all do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years. | ||
| It's really hard. | ||
| But don't worry. | ||
| Unlike Pop. | ||
| I won't make you give me half your salary. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, if you saw a text message like this in a potential money laundering operation or a potential pay-for-play operation, would you be looking for information related to money going from son to father? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely, without a doubt. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Next slide. | ||
| Oh, this is a fun one. | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, this one is from 2018. | ||
| This is about four months before Joe Biden launched his campaign for President of the United States. | ||
| December 2018. | ||
| The highlight is, this is a text message between Jim Biden and Hunter Biden. | ||
| Hunter Biden was in a bad way, by the way. | ||
| He was really strung out. | ||
| He lost a bunch of money. | ||
| He needed help. | ||
| Jim Biden says, this can work. | ||
| You need a safe harbor. | ||
| I can work with your father alone. | ||
| It'll probably take several months and everybody can read the text. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, Ms. Dubinsky, if you saw text messages like this between the President's brother and the President's son, wouldn't you be concerned about them trying to give plausible deniability for the President of the United States to not have any knowledge of said business dealings? | ||
| It's worth investigating. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would agree. | |
| I would investigate this. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| So, Republicans are in the unenviable task of having to rip the eyeballs open, kind of like the meme, right, from Bird Box or whatever that Netflix show is. | ||
| It's like the meme of the guy having to hold the lady's eyes open for her to see, you know, the monster. | ||
| They're having to do this with the evidence of Biden's crimes, and Democrats, so far, their evidence, what they have used to refute all of this is, uh, Mr. Chairman, Donald Trump is orange man bad. | ||
| We don't like his skin color. | ||
| Donald Trump incited an erection. | ||
| It was an orange erection. | ||
| That's what they've got so far. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| If you're waiting for them to present an argument, there isn't going to be an argument. | ||
| So, right now what they're doing, and this is going to be probably one of the, you know, this is going to be... | ||
| One of the less muscular brawler hearings because they're bringing in these academics in order to create the bedrock for what they're talking about. | ||
| They're bringing in this lady from the IRS, this man who is a prosecutor, and they're bringing in Turley, who is a philosopher and professor on these things. | ||
| And then the Democrats, of course, have their squishy little witness. | ||
| What they're doing is they're setting the bedrock. | ||
| What's really going to happen here is when they bring in Bobulinski, when they bring in Devin Archer, when they bring in members of the Biden crime syndicate like Eric Schwerin, you're going to see this thing really start rolling. | ||
| And we have, we've been communicating with some members of the committee. | ||
| Trust me, they got, this is, they're going to, they're going to roll this thing out. | ||
| We're right here at the beginning of, end of September, beginning of October. | ||
| They're going to roll this thing out all the way through Christmas. | ||
| Here we go. | ||
| It's going to be wild. | ||
| And we got Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene up next for questioning. | ||
| So get ready for extra brawls, baby. | ||
| My favorite, though, probably a line of questioning thus far has been Nancy Mace. | ||
| Nancy Mace starting off her commentary by saying that Democrats trying to ignore the evidence against Joe Biden, calling it total and complete BS. | ||
| Yes, watch. | ||
| Representative Raskin, he said in 2019, there's no formal constitutional or statutory or even the House rule for how an impeachment inquiry is to begin. | ||
| And so it means different things to different people. | ||
| I don't want to hear another word from the left or anyone across the other side of the aisle about impeachment inquiry. | ||
| This is complete and total hypocrisy this morning. | ||
| Today, we're going to bring the facts. | ||
| Today, we are going to bring the evidence. | ||
| In 2017... | ||
| The Joe Biden family teamed up with Chinese company CEFC to make millions off of granting access to Joe Biden. | ||
| Hunter even arranged for Joe Biden to share office space with the CCP-aligned company CEFC. | ||
| My Democrat colleagues say none of this is relevant because Joe Biden wasn't vice president while his family did these shady deals. | ||
| Turns out that's complete and total bullshit. | ||
| It's a lie. | ||
| Hunter Biden referred to access to his father as the keys to his family's only asset. | ||
| Those words are going to come back and haunt Hunter Biden and his family forever. | ||
| Yesterday, the Ways and Means Committee released an FBI memo on the interview they had with Tony Bobulinski, a former Biden partner in crime. | ||
| I'll read a bit of that right now. | ||
| The work conducted by CEFC, Gilear, Walker, Hunter Biden, James Biden, and Yee over the preceding two years was discussed in detail. | ||
| In particular, CEFC was closing significant investment deals in Poland, Kazakhstan, Romania, Oman, and the Middle East during this period of time. | ||
| Period of time is in reference to the years 2015 and 2016, when guess what? | ||
| Joe Biden was vice president. | ||
| As an aside, Rob Walker in previous testimony also confirmed that Joe Biden attended a meeting with the head of CEFC. | ||
| So now we know CEFC was working with the Biden family while Joe Biden was vice president. | ||
| And I'll continue reading from Tony Bobulinski's report, which says, and I quote Bobulinski, Hunter Biden and James Biden did not receive compensation because Joe Biden was still vice president during this time period. | ||
| There is a concern it would be improper for payments to be made to Hunter Biden and James Byland. | ||
| By CEFC due to its close affiliation with the Chinese government. | ||
| Hunter Biden and James Biden both wanted to be compensated for the assistance they had provided to CEFC's ventures. | ||
| In particular, they believe CEFC owed them money for the benefits that accrued to CEFC through its use of the Biden family name to advance their business dealings. | ||
| The Bidens, coincidentally, were paid over a million dollars by CCP-affiliated Chinese company CEFC shortly after Joe Biden left office as vice president. | ||
| Now we know why, because it was back pay. | ||
| I'm going to show another image. | ||
| This is a text message between Hunter Biden and Gongwen Dong, an agent of CEFC. | ||
| Hunter says, my uncle will be here with his brother, in all caps, who would like to say hello to the chairman. | ||
| He goes on, Jim's brother, if he's coming, wants to say hello. | ||
| I wonder who that could be. | ||
| I can't quite figure it out. | ||
| Hunter puts brother in all caps, and it doesn't take a genius to figure this out, but since I'm not always dealing with geniuses and Washington, D.C. has been illustrated today, I'll spell it out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The brother of Hunter... | |
| Hunter's uncle, Jim, is Joe Biden. | ||
| Why was Hunter so secretive about his father? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm going to tell you why. | |
| It's because Joe Biden didn't want the American people to know he and his family were getting paid millions and millions of dollars from a company closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| CEFC knew paying Biden family members was bad, so they covered it up. | ||
| Hunter knew Joe Biden hanging out with CCP businessmen would be a bad look, so he tried to pull a genius move on us with this whole my uncle's brother bullshit. | ||
| We already know the president took bribes from Burisma. | ||
| I also want to add, betraying your country is treason. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this text message between Hunter Biden and Gan Wing Dong and the FBI memo regarding their interview with Tony Bobulinski showing Joe Biden's connections to CFC during his vice presidency. | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Professor Turley, we've got 30 seconds. | ||
| In your experience in reviewing cases of fraud, do people who are conducting legitimate business usually go through these efforts and hoops to keep their foreign entanglements hidden? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| The issue with influence peddling is that it can, in some circumstances, be legal, but it's not something that necessarily is made public. | ||
| The public does not buy into the idea that you can sell your family brand if it's influence peddling. | ||
| So what happens with influence peddling is that you often have the commission of crimes to conceal it and to take steps so that it's not public. | ||
| That may include, but it's not necessarily the reason in this case, but it may include the failure to pay taxes, the failure to register as a foreign agent. | ||
| And part of the purpose of an inquiry is to see if there is a linkage between those acts and, more importantly, a linkage to the president. | ||
| Can I briefly respond to the earlier attack? | ||
| You may have additional questions. | ||
| I don't want to take your time. | ||
| Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I'm sorry, the gentle ladies, over time. | ||
| All right, ladies and gentlemen, that was Nancy Mace. | ||
| It's bullshit is the number one line so far from the... | ||
| Now, we've had a number of very interesting opportunities to listen to Democrats attempt to debunk or to refute some of the charges. | ||
| So one of them is that Joe Biden is simply, and we called it, guilty of being a father. | ||
| That's the crime. | ||
| Joe Biden is guilty of being a father. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This entire fake impeachment inquiry isn't about the United States. | |
| It's about Hunter Biden. | ||
| And the only thing the president can be guilty of here is being a father. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Come on. | |
| High School Musical, everyone. | ||
| High School Musical. | ||
| AOC leading the band. | ||
| Oh, baby. | ||
| And we also have a new character in our repertoire. | ||
| Who is Discount Jen Psaki. | ||
| Walmart Jen Psaki. | ||
| Sam's Club Jen Psaki has been introduced to us. | ||
| Check it out. | ||
| She comes with charts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We also know that if Donald Trump doesn't get his way, he wants his loyalists to shut down the government. | |
| How do we know that? | ||
| Because they posted it right here on his social media. | ||
| And his loyalists in this committee who are doing his bidding for him today. | ||
| Retweeted it! | ||
| And in fact, it actually says right here that the reason why they want to defund the government and impeach is because this is the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me. | ||
| So folks, this is not a serious inquiry. | ||
| This is not a serious hearing. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| All right. | ||
| New characters in our repertoire. | ||
| I mean, I don't know. | ||
| I haven't seen any compelling argument against the evidence that has been put forward. | ||
| Again, this is somewhat of a slow start, I would say, because they're bringing in the constitutional scholars, the professors. | ||
| The tax experts, they shared some ladies' memes on LinkedIn, which were hilarious, trying to disparage the witness's character. | ||
| I think that's pretty funny. | ||
| But Jim Jordan has obviously been very, very good. | ||
| James Comer has been very good. | ||
| Five minutes is not a lot of time, and a lot of people are giving some pretty long speeches. | ||
| I think that some Republicans could be more pointed in their questionings and could also use the expertise of the witnesses instead of... | ||
| On the other hand, the Democrats are making complete fools of themselves, and it really does... | ||
| Show you that what we are dealing with is the liberal arts program inside of the feminist wing of a private, small community college when it comes to the modern Democrat Party. | ||
| It is simply flailing of the arms. | ||
| The theater kids have taken over Congress. | ||
| The theater kids, flailing of the arms. | ||
| Like, grandiose, like, speeches reading from their scripts. | ||
| Not a brain cell among them. | ||
| And it's, uh, if this is the best defense they got, I don't know, man. | ||
| Even Dan Goldman has been shut down really hard a couple of times, but not as hard as Donald Trump shut down Joe Biden last night. | ||
| This is what Donald Trump had to say on the eve of this impeachment inquiry. | ||
| Crooked Joe and his payday with the Biden family, they raked in millions and millions of dollars. | ||
| You see what's going on. | ||
| News doesn't really report it. | ||
| Very little news reports it. | ||
| But it was the men and women who got, every single day they got up and came back home with grease in their hands and they were the ones that paid the price. | ||
| They paid a big, big price. | ||
| The only time Joe Biden has ever gotten his hands dirty is when he's taking cash from foreign countries, which is quite often, actually. | ||
| It's quite often. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| This is Donald Trump speaking in Michigan last night. | ||
| Donald Trump spoke in Michigan to auto union workers at an auto plant in Michigan, a truck provider, and polls show that he won. | ||
| This disastrous GOP debate was just a complete and total flipping nightmare. | ||
| It makes my blood boil. | ||
| Why is it so hard to find moderators that ask Republican questions? | ||
| Why do we always have to degrade ourselves and humiliate ourselves as a party and denigrate our voters by letting liberals ask questions at our Republican debates? | ||
| I mean, it's one thing if it's like the two parties debating each other, then I can see them jockeying for a more moderate moderator for a debate. | ||
| But it is such a despicable insult to you and to me last night. | ||
| Because what you have is you have the continuance of modernization Two of the moderators at last night's debate had foreign citizenship. | ||
| What the hell are they doing asking questions of our presidential candidates? | ||
| But the candidates themselves were absolute jokes as well. | ||
| It was pretty embarrassing for virtually everyone on stage. | ||
| Very few highlights. | ||
| Donald Trump had the better event. | ||
| Here's Donald Trump talking about Joe Biden being upstaged. | ||
| Joe Biden got all nervous that Donald Trump was going to Michigan, so Joe Biden cut a head in line and had to run to Michigan to give a speech for a total of 87 seconds to some striking auto union workers. | ||
| Here's Donald Trump. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right? | |
| I mean, how could they go with this guy? | ||
| Can't find his way off a stage. | ||
| I'm looking at these, you know, I always sort of look at stages now, I get a little, because I say, you know, how the hell do you not find your way? | ||
| So every once in a while I'll be in the middle of the speech, I'll look, stairs there, stairs there. | ||
| And I say, how the hell does it work that you can't find your way off a stage? | ||
| How does that work? | ||
| But he can't. | ||
| Joe Biden is surrendering our auto industry to China, just like he surrendered our borders to the cartel. | ||
| All right, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we are back. | ||
| They're getting set. | ||
| So let's go ahead and... | ||
| Without objection to order, the chair now recognizes Mr. Fallon from Texas for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| All right, here we go. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Words mean things, or at least they should. | |
| Here's Joe Biden's words from August 28, 2019. | ||
| First of all, I have never discussed... | ||
| With my son or my brother or anyone else, anything to do with their business. | ||
| From September the same year, I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings. | ||
| October, same year, quote, I don't discuss business with my son. | ||
| Were Joe Biden's words true? | ||
| No, they were false. | ||
| So why did he lie repeatedly? | ||
| In an interview back in 2019 with The New Yorker, even Hunter admitted that he talked to his dad about business, Burisma. | ||
| Many of Hunter Biden's business associates have testified Joe Biden met with them. | ||
| Two of the ones closest to Hunter, Rob Walker and Devin Archer, were among them. | ||
| So they not only spoke to him, a lot of the business associates took photos with him. | ||
| They played golf with him. | ||
| Joe Biden gave them White House tours. | ||
| He wrote letters of recommendation for their children and shared fancy dinners as well. | ||
| So let's also talk about patterns. | ||
| Yuri Luzkov and Yelena Bedirina. | ||
| They are Russian. | ||
| They're married. | ||
| They were married. | ||
| Russian oligarch billionaires. | ||
| Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, ID Luzkov as being corrupt. | ||
| Yelena Bedirina wires $3.5 million to Hunter Biden. | ||
| Soon thereafter, who does she have dinner with? | ||
| Then Vice President Joe Biden. | ||
| Kinez Raskov, Rakishev rather, and Kareem Mazumov, Kazakhstani Nationals. | ||
| Mazumov is now in prison. | ||
| Rakishev wires $142,300. | ||
| To Hunter Biden. | ||
| The very next day, Hunter Biden buys a Porsche for $142,300. | ||
| And then soon after, who do you think Rakesh has dinner with? | ||
| Say it with me. | ||
| Then-Vice President Joe Biden. | ||
| Adam Posarski and Mikhail Zolchevsky, the CEO and CFO of Burisma. | ||
| U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Jeffrey Pyatt calls Zolchevsky a poster child of corruption. | ||
| Those two fellas paid Hunter Biden's shell companies a total of $3.3 million. | ||
| And who do you think Madame Pozarski had dinner with? | ||
| Again, say it with me all at once. | ||
| Then-Vice President Joe Biden. | ||
| So here's a pattern. | ||
| You have crooked foreigners that deliver pallets of cash to the Bidens, and then they have dinner with Joe. | ||
| And apparently Joe Biden has won a hell of an expensive dinner date. | ||
| And if that's not selling political access, I don't know what is. | ||
| My Democratic colleagues report ad nauseum when they talk to the media that there's no direct evidence linking Joe Biden to his son's crimes. | ||
| Really? | ||
| This is a FD-1023, which is used by the FBI when confidential informants give them information. | ||
| This 1023 is only as good as the source. | ||
| It could be garbage or it could be gold. | ||
| The FBI describes this source as somebody that is highly reliable and very trustworthy. | ||
| In fact, they've worked with him for over a decade and paid him well over $100,000. | ||
| What he has given to them is always checked out. | ||
| This, ladies and gentlemen, is gold. | ||
| Consider this with weight and gravity. | ||
| So what does this say? | ||
| I don't know what the confidential informant's name is, so I'm going to call him Ivan. | ||
| Ivan is not his real name, but Ivan describes that I'm Pazarski. | ||
| Directly admitting to him in a confidential conversation that they hired a not-so-smart Hunter Biden to protect us, quote, through his dad from all kinds of problems. | ||
| Then Ivan speaks directly to CEO Zolchevsky, and Zolchevsky confides that Hunter Biden will take care of those corruption issues through his dad. | ||
| Zolchevsky is being investigated by Viktor Shokin, a Ukrainian prosecutor. | ||
| Joe Biden suddenly begins to call for Shokin's removal. | ||
| Now, Ivan is also told by Zolchefsky that it cost him $5 million to pay one Biden and $5 million to pay the other. | ||
| This is direct evidence of naked corruption and bribery. | ||
| Zolchefsky also admitted to Ivan that both Bidens pushed him to pay them and to keep Hunter Biden on the board. | ||
| Please keep in mind, these were confidential conversations. | ||
| Also interesting that Zolchefsky referred to Biden as the big guy. | ||
| And I doubt he knows Tony Boblinski. | ||
| Shokin seized two homes, land and a Rolls Royce, from Zolchevsky. | ||
| When he was fired, the Ukrainian president admitted in a phone call to none other than Joe Biden that Shokin didn't do anything wrong, but at your behest, we fired him. | ||
| And then a billion dollars of aid that was being withheld was given to Ukraine. | ||
| And lastly, after Shokin was fired, Hunter Biden and the other members of the Burisma board wrote a letter to the new prosecutor demanding... | ||
| The investigation into Zolchevsky ended. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| Shockingly, it did. | ||
| The message was sent and the Bidens delivered. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, in your experience in financial investigations, you follow the money. | ||
| If you were investigating this and looking at a $5 million payment from Burisma to Joe Biden, what kinds of information or patterns would you be looking for? | ||
| Well, I'd want to know who, what, when, where, and why. | ||
| What's going on? | ||
| Why is the money moving? | ||
| What's it for? | ||
| What's the substance behind it? | ||
| And talk to people. | ||
| Look at documents and talk to people. | ||
| That's what we do in investigations. | ||
| I would venture to say everybody in this chamber, if they were the CEO of a company and they saw money moving like that within their own company, they'd want to get to the truth. | ||
| They'd want to find out why is that money moving? | ||
| Why is somebody paying that money out? | ||
| Those are the questions that need to be asked and get to the bottom of. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I have another unanimous consent request. | ||
| I'd like to enter into the record a July 9, 2016 letter from three Burisma board members, including Hunter Biden to Yuri Lutsenko, who replaced Shokin as the prosecutor general, expressing concern that Mr. Lutsenko had initiated an investigation into Burisma. | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Chair recognized Mr. Kassar from Texas. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I'd like to begin with a quote. | ||
| The people of America elected all 435 of us to do the things they expect Congress to do. | ||
| Real business, not theater. | ||
| Try to have some type of prescription drug reform legislation this year. | ||
| But instead, the majority party is conducting baseless impeachment hearings. | ||
| Who do we think said this quote? | ||
| Was it Nancy Pelosi? | ||
| Maybe ranking member Jamie Raskin? | ||
| Mr. Chairman, you might recognize that quote because you said this in 2019. | ||
| You said it on the floor of the U.S. House, saying impeaching Donald Trump was political theater. | ||
| Trump was first impeached for attempting to extort a foreign president into helping the Trump presidential campaign. | ||
| And if you didn't consider that criminal, how about when Trump was impeached trying to overthrow the results of the presidential election and then incited a violent insurrection against the government? | ||
| So if you thought that impeaching Trump was political theater, then what would you call this? | ||
| This? | ||
| This is a disgrace. | ||
| And I hope that someday top Republican officials We'll find some integrity. | ||
| In the case of Trump, because you fear his social media wrath, right-wing officials will deny all evidence against Trump, come hell or high water. | ||
| But in the case of President Joe Biden, you decided to start the impeaching now and figure out the whole evidence thing later. | ||
| And you still haven't figured it out. | ||
| Your own Republican-called witnesses today say they don't see the evidence to impeach President Joe Biden. | ||
| Bunch of stuff about Hunter this, Hunter that. | ||
| But they've said they don't see the evidence to impeach Joe Biden. | ||
| That is a disgraceful double standard. | ||
| It damages our democracy, insults the institution of Congress, and more than anything, disgraces this body and the eyes of the American public. | ||
| This inquiry is a cynical attempt to tar everyone, to make everyone look suspect, make everyone look corrupt, so that voters just give up and say, there's not much difference here. | ||
| But we cannot give up on discerning truth from propaganda. | ||
| We cannot give up on our collective governance. | ||
| Congress is a place where historically people of enormous integrity have throughout history taken on big challenges of inequality, injustice, instability. | ||
| We can and must impartially look at the evidence before us and have equal justice under the law. | ||
| And the evidence before us shows no wrongdoing by President Biden. | ||
| We haven't seen that evidence throughout the testimony today. | ||
| Your own Republican call witnesses have said they haven't seen that kind of evidence. | ||
| There is separate evidence that supports indictments, unrelated indictments against his son, Hunter, and multiple indictments spanning 91 criminal charges against former President Trump. | ||
| I, for one, am grateful we have an independent judicial system where a president's son or a former president like Trump can be investigated and prosecuted if they violate the law. | ||
| It is my firm belief that Hunter and Trump should both face trial and if guilty, Be held accountable for the crimes they've been accused of. | ||
| Can everyone on the oversight committee say the same thing? | ||
| Well, members of the oversight committee, please raise your hand if you believe both Hunter and Trump should be held accountable for any of the indictments against them if convicted by a jury of their peers. | ||
| We can take a minute. | ||
| No, it's serious. | ||
| This is a serious matter. | ||
| If you all need to think about it, we can take a moment and think about it. | ||
| It is serious. | ||
| This is very serious. | ||
| Think about it. | ||
| Should both Hunter and Trump be held accountable? | ||
| I want to see whether you'd raise your hands. | ||
| Should Hunter and Trump both be held accountable if they're found guilty on any of their indictments? | ||
| Raise your hand if you think that equal justice under the law applies and Trump should be held accountable. | ||
| I think it is worse than embarrassing that Republicans won't raise their hands. | ||
| They refuse to say. | ||
| That equal justice under the law should apply to everyone. | ||
| And when you step back and think about it, it's kind of scary. | ||
| This double standard insults the institutions of Congress that people fought and died to build. | ||
| This impeachment hearing clearly is not about justice. | ||
| We cannot say equal justice under the law for everyone except for the guy who holds the leash. | ||
| I'll yield the rest of my time to ranking member Raskin. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I think as you were being interrupted by several colleagues, I heard one question posed by the distinguished gentlelady from Georgia who said, what about the January 6th defendants, all of whom had lawyers due process, the presumption of innocence, and they were convicted of various things, including assaulting federal officers and metropolitan... | ||
|
unidentified
|
What about the BLM rioters? | |
| Mr. Askin, if I can take my time back. | ||
| We've heard, because it wasn't on the microphones, multiple members saying it's wrong that January 6th rioters were convicted by a jury of their peers. | ||
| That is disturbing. | ||
| We've started to get used to it, but we can't get used to it. | ||
| It's scary. | ||
| Now, Chair recognizes Mr. Perry. | ||
| Chair recognizes Mr. Fallon for a point of work. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I ask you to enter the FD1023 under the record. | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Mr. Perry from Pennsylvania for five minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| In an attempt to establish some patterns here and get to actual facts out, the media won't report. | ||
| The President's son seemed to benefit often from government positions as far back as 1996. | ||
| He refused his first job at MBNA. | ||
| Then-Senator Joe Biden had supported the controversial bankruptcy bill, which really favored the company to the peril of average citizens, and he got the name Senator for MNBA, after which Hunter then continued to benefit from his father's public positions. | ||
| And in 2011, he was contacted by Che Fang, who's a Chinese politician and businessman. | ||
| They wanted to form a joint investment firm that then became a subsidiary of the Bank of China. | ||
| Now, it seems like the president's son's only skill is leveraging his family name. | ||
| It essentially seems like it comes to him like swimming comes to a fish. | ||
| If we could put up on the screen an email. | ||
| Between Devin Archer and the president's son. | ||
| And if you can see here where he's asked, why does the super chairman love me so much? | ||
| And the answer is, it's easy. | ||
| It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with my last name. | ||
| That's the president's son. | ||
| That's not me saying it. | ||
| That's the president's son. | ||
| He openly acknowledged it doesn't come from education or business acumen. | ||
| It comes from his name. | ||
| And let's face it, it is his name, but it's not his name that was garnering all the attention. | ||
| Both were selling their name, one to MBNA and the other to the highest bidder. | ||
| Devin Archer, in his transcribed interview, if you'll put that on the screen, please. | ||
| He confirmed it. | ||
| If I can get Mr. Archer's testimony on the screen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| While it's getting up there, because the clock's not up there. | ||
| Biden family, he confirmed it and said the Biden family was the product or the brand. | ||
| And it's fair to say in quotes that Joe Biden was the brand and obviously brought most value to the brand. | ||
| I make that case because The president's son was addicted to drugs, and he was frequenting prostitutes, so I suspect his value of a brand was pretty low compared to his father, who was the vice president of the United States. | ||
| I mean, companies brand their products, whether it's a food company or a car company or shoe company. | ||
| They brand it because it provides trust by their buyers. | ||
| From their buyers. | ||
| Now, this committee first released a bank memo on March 16, 2023, that showed that less than two months after the vice president left office, State Energy HK Limited sent Robinson Walker, again, a very close friend and business associate of the Biden family, $3 million. | ||
| Shortly thereafter, literally the next day, and within the next series of days, Robinson Walker sent over $1 million to the Biden family and associated businesses, and they were sent in suspect incremental payments. | ||
| And it follows a pattern. | ||
| I can give you other instances where the exact same thing occurred. | ||
| One-third for Robinson Walker, one-third here, one-third there. | ||
| That's how it worked out. | ||
| Now, the Biden family provided no legitimate services, yet Hallie Biden, reportedly working as a school counselor, It was provided some of this money. | ||
| For what? | ||
| What was the product or what was the service? | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into record the first bank record memos dated March 16, 2023. | ||
| New evidence resulting from the Oversight Committee's investigation into the Biden family's influence, peddling, and business schemes showing that the Biden family members and Biden-associated businesses Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Turley, thank you for being here. | ||
| What is influence peddling? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Influence peddling is to sell access or influence to an officeholder to achieve some end. | |
| There's sometimes a very clear quid pro quo, which is a specific act that you want. | ||
| Sometimes it's a general pattern of corruption of favoring someone. | ||
| I actually, in my testimony, gave the... | ||
| I believe it was the Canadian definition, which I thought was a particularly good one under their law. | ||
| But the United States also signed off on a convention on public corruption that also has definitions that are relevant. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, in the remaining time, this money, these wires being sent to family members with no apparent legitimate services being rendered, is this something that you would find interest in and would... | ||
| Yourself, if charged with it, would investigate on your own. | ||
| Please answer the question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It would be a red flag, and I would follow up on that. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I've got a point of order. | ||
| I didn't want to interrupt the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, but he referred to an email at the beginning of his testimony. | ||
| We've not been provided a copy of that email, and I don't know where it came from. | ||
| What is the source of that material? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The source of the material is from 100 bodies. | |
| Hunter Biden sent it to the committee? | ||
| Hunter Biden sent that to the committee? | ||
| Because, you know, we have a rule on this. | ||
| We've got to be provided all material that's going to be entered in the record. | ||
| Our colleagues keep relying on emails that are purportedly obtained from Hunter Biden's laptop. | ||
| But we have no idea if those emails are authentic. | ||
| As you know, you've not shared with us what you say is the hard drive to Hunter Biden's laptop, and nobody's verified them. | ||
| The CBS has verified them. | ||
| The CBS News did a forensic audit, so they're legitimate. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I ask you to have the email entered into the record. | ||
| Well, then I'm going to... | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Because we don't know what the basis of that is. | ||
| We'll work on getting you an answer. | ||
| If I could just say... | ||
| The computer repair guy who disseminated that stuff says he cannot account for the chain of custody of the alleged hard drive of the laptop. | ||
| So we have no idea where that comes from. | ||
| And we'll get you the answer to that, but I would like to remind the ranking member that President Sun is now suing the repair guy for leaking his laptop. | ||
| Remember, he denied it forever, and you all said it was Russian manipulation. | ||
| Right, I agree with you, but he can't account for the custody of it after. | ||
| We'll get you the answer on the source of the email. | ||
| Chairman, I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record our own 2023 transcribed interview with our committee of Devin Archer, where he clearly states, quote, the brand was Washington, D.C., not President Biden. | ||
| He was asked, the brand was really Joe Biden, and Mr. Archer responded, D.C. was the brand. | ||
| Without objection to order, it's in the record twice now. | ||
| Well, I guess it's a reminder. | ||
| So, Chair recognizes Ms. Crockett from Texas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you so much, Mr. Chair. | |
| Before I begin my questioning, I want to remind everyone that the information recorded in the FBI Form 1023 that my Republican colleagues keep citing is not evidence of anything. | ||
| This form reflects years-old secondhand unverified information from a Ukrainian oligarch as relayed to the FBI by a confidential human source. | ||
| These unverified secondhand allegations have been repeatedly debunked and undermined, including by the confidential human source who relayed The tip recorded in the Form 1023 was thoroughly explored by the U.S. attorney handpicked by Donald Trump. | ||
| Which was Attorney General William Barr, and the assessment was closed. | ||
| Finally, Devin Archer, Hunter Biden's former business partner who worked with the Ukrainian oligarch in question, told this committee in a transcribed interview in July that he had no knowledge of any such payments allegedly described in this form. | ||
| Repeating the same lies will not somehow turn them into truths. | ||
| Kind of like the election that Trump lost. | ||
| Say it with me. | ||
| He lost it. | ||
| Repeating the same lie that he won wasn't going to turn the election around. | ||
| The lost... | ||
| In this chamber, keep pushing lies and lunacy on behalf of a multi-time loser. | ||
| So, if we're going to talk about China, let's go ahead and talk about China. | ||
| And let's talk about the dealings. | ||
| And let me point out the fact that right now, each of you has admitted that none of you are fact witnesses. | ||
| We walked in without facts. | ||
| And unfortunately, because what we say isn't necessarily evidence, we have wasted the American people's time and we are going to walk out of this chamber and we still have no facts that are leading to... | ||
| But let me give y 'all a little bit of tea while we're here. | ||
| So, I have a document that I will ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record. | ||
| It's a fact sheet on President Trump's shady business dealings with the Chinese government. | ||
| What are you entering in? | ||
| A record from who? | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is from the Congressional Integrity. | |
| Congressional Integrity Project? | ||
| The Dark Money Pack? | ||
| I object to that too. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Of course y 'all gonna object, but we gonna talk about it. | |
| So. | ||
| It says... | ||
| Is she 12 years old? | ||
| President Trump collected millions of Chinese government-owned entities while in office. | ||
| I have the best tenants in the world. | ||
| President Trump was well aware of the multi-million dollar lease to Chinese interests. | ||
| President Trump promised to donate foreign government profits while in office, but he donated less than a third of his proceeds from the Chinese government. | ||
| President Trump maintained three foreign bank accounts while in office, including one in China. | ||
| President Trump's business with China raised legal and ethical concerns. | ||
| President Trump, President Xi loves the people of China. | ||
| He loves his country and he's doing a very good job. | ||
| Let me tell you something. | ||
| I don't want to talk about What y 'all want to act like is some big mystery because we keep sitting here, and Professor Gerhardt, just to be clear, as my colleagues have even tried to provide evidence, which they're not the ones to provide evidence, have you ever heard them say if since we've been sitting here for I don't know how long? | ||
| Yes, I've been taking a tally. | ||
| Oh, okay. | ||
| Can you show us? | ||
| Can you tell us what Talia is? | ||
| More than 35 times the Republican witnesses and Republican members of the committee have used the word if. | ||
| Thank you so much for that. | ||
| Because honestly, if they would continue to say if or Hunter and we were playing a drinking game, I would be drunk by now. | ||
| Because I promise you, they have not talked about the subject of this, which would be the president. | ||
| But let me tell you something that was so disturbing as I walked in. | ||
| To this chamber today. | ||
| Oh my God. | ||
|
unidentified
|
As I prepared, I said, what is the crime? | |
| If TikTok was a member of Congress. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because when you're talking about impeachment, you're talking about high crimes or misdemeanors. | |
| And I can't seem to find the crime. | ||
| And honestly, no one has testified of what crime they believe the President of the United States has committed. | ||
| But when we started talking about things that look like evidence, they want to act like they blind. | ||
| They don't know what this is. | ||
| These are our national secrets. | ||
| This looks like more evidence of our national secrets, say, on a stage at Mar-a-Lago. | ||
| When we're talking about somebody that's committed high crimes, it's at least indictments. | ||
| Let's say 32 counts related to unauthorized retention of national security secrets, seven counts related to obstructing the investigation, three false statements, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, falsifying business records conspiracy to defraud the United States, two counts related to efforts to obstruct the vote certification proceedings, | ||
| count of conspiracy to violate civil rights, 23 counts related to forgery or false document statements, eight counts related to soliciting, and I could go on because he's got 91 counts pending right now. | ||
| But I will tell you what the president has been guilty of. | ||
| He has unfortunately been guilty of loving his child unconditionally, and that is the only evidence that they have Until they find some evidence, we need to get back to the people's work, which means keeping this government open so that people don't go hungry in the streets of the United States, and I will heal. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| Democrats, what have you elected? | ||
| What are you sending to Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
My colleagues across the aisle alleged that this inquiry is improper. | |
| How is that a member of Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That cannot be further from the truth. | |
| We now have enormous amounts of evidence indicating that Hunter Biden was engaged in various illegal activities with foreign nationals from China, Romania, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Russia, all while making millions of dollars doing so. | ||
| Oh my God. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We don't even know the full extent of it yet. | |
| Just basic English. | ||
| And that's without even having Hunter Biden's personal bank records. | ||
| The question is this, though. | ||
| This is the question. | ||
| This is why we're here. | ||
| What did Joe Biden know? | ||
| What was that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Due to the evidence we found to date, Speaker McCarthy appropriately initiated an impeachment inquiry to give us additional tools to get the answer to that question. | |
| Based on the circumstantial evidence we have, the laptop, the whistleblowers, shell companies, bank records and testimony from Devin Archer, this Congress has a duty to further investigate whether Vice President Joe Biden was an affable, loving father simply taken advantage of by his delinquent son or a knowing participant. | ||
| Who is complicit in the scheme and financially compensated for his role? | ||
| That is why we are here today. | ||
| To answer that simple question. | ||
| To determine if our current president is compromised. | ||
| Look, this scheme is complicated. | ||
| All these countries and all these different roles different people played. | ||
| But the plan is simple and repeated often. | ||
| A foreign client has a problem. | ||
| The foreign client pays a Biden. | ||
| The vice president leverages influence to force favorable outcomes for the client. | ||
| The Biden family earns their fee. | ||
| That's the scheme. | ||
| We've seen it played over and over. | ||
| As we continue to investigate all of this wrongdoing, I've put a lot of time trying to figure out how all this got started. | ||
| In 2014, it seems that Vice President Biden, after four decades of public service and thinking he would never hold public office again, started down a slippery slope. | ||
| Perhaps he just wanted to help his struggling son. | ||
| Maybe he never intended to sell policy decisions and for the Biden family to get millions of dollars. | ||
| But there's mounting evidence that suggests that he... | ||
| That may very be what has happened. | ||
| It all began in the spring of 2014, though. | ||
| Hunter Biden gets his father to have dinner with foreign nationals and his business partner, Devin Archer, in Georgetown. | ||
| The foreign nationals attending this dinner were Kareem Massimov, the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Kenneth Rakoshev, a Kazakhstani oligarch, Yelena Batarina, a Russian oligarch who also happened to be the wife of the mayor of Moscow. | ||
| We know that beginning in early 2014, Baterina sent a $3.5 million wire to one of Hunter Biden's shell companies, and Rakushchev wired $142,300 to yet another shell company for Hunter Biden to buy a Porsche. | ||
| We have the bank records to prove this. | ||
| So the logical question here is, what was this money for? | ||
| What were the goals of those payments? | ||
| For Baterina, it seems, her motives were clear. | ||
| She knew that Russia was going to invade Crimea, and as a response to the invasion, the Obama administration would inevitably announce sanctions and visa bans. | ||
| Who's left off the list that the Obama administration published? | ||
| Who was noticeably missing? | ||
| Elena Baterina, the richest woman in Russia, the woman who wired Hunter Biden $3.5 million just days earlier. | ||
| That's just a coincidence. | ||
| For Rakhishev, the motive was to leverage Biden's influence to aid in the facilitation of the sale of Kazakhstani state oil rights to Burisma. | ||
| And guess what? | ||
| In December of the same year, Rakhishev's oil company in Burisma joined a Chinese Communist Party-linked company and announced a deal. | ||
| Everyone got rich. | ||
| Again, another amazing coincidence. | ||
| These are only the first two of dozens of examples of the scheme. | ||
| A foreign client has a problem. | ||
| A foreign client pays a Biden. | ||
| Vice President leverages influence to force a favorable outcome for the client. | ||
| Biden family earns their fee. | ||
| Our work over the last nine months warrants additional scrutiny of Biden family members and business associates and requires additional tools at our disposal to uncover whether Joe Biden was complicit. | ||
| Again, the purpose of this investigation. | ||
| Our next steps are to subpoena additional documents that will give context to these transactions to help determine Joe Biden's culpability. | ||
| We're going to subpoena Hunter Biden's personal bank records. | ||
| Various business records such as invoices and contracts to clarify what these payments were for. | ||
| Secret service logs detailing movement patterns of then-Vice President. | ||
| The list goes on and on. | ||
| And again, I just want everybody to remember, we're doing this because the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the IRS refused to do their job. | ||
| And we have evidence just in the last week that they're actively concealing these possible crimes. | ||
| If we discover that Joe Biden was taking half of Hunter Biden's income, like Hunter told his daughter in a text message, That my Democrat colleagues will put politics aside, do the right thing, and join us in impeaching a corrupt president who sold out the American people. | ||
| With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. | ||
| Chairman, I recognize Mr. Goldman from New York. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| This hearing is entitled The Basis for an Impeachment Inquiry. | ||
| You would think that after eight months of an investigation, we would not need to have a hearing with no witness who has any direct knowledge of... | ||
| The evidence to determine that there is a basis for this impeachment inquiry. | ||
| And this is an impeachment inquiry. | ||
| Mr. Turley and Mr. Gerhard testified in 2019 in the official impeachment process in the Judiciary Committee. | ||
| The inquiry was in the Intelligence Committee. | ||
| And in the Intelligence Committee, there were 17 firsthand witnesses with direct knowledge of the allegations. | ||
| And the public hearings had 12 witnesses, all with firsthand. | ||
| Here we are in our first hearing. | ||
| No one has any actual knowledge or evidence. | ||
| There's nothing new here. | ||
| So why don't we have some of the fact witnesses here? | ||
| You've brought them in. | ||
| They've come in already. | ||
| What about Devin Archer? | ||
| Now, Mr. Donalds and the chairman now want to disavow Mr. Archer's testimony that Mr. Biggs entirely relies upon, but they don't want him to come sit here. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Well, maybe because he testified that Joe Biden never discussed business with Hunter or other business associates, he got nothing from their businesses, and he never took any official acts related to the businesses. | ||
| Or maybe the American people might hear that this $3.5 million from Batarina actually had nothing to do with Hunter Biden, which is what Devin Archer testified. | ||
| Or what about Eric Schwerin, Hunter Biden's partner and accountant? | ||
| He also performed a number of administrative and bookkeeping tasks for then-Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden. | ||
| He saw President Biden's bank accounts. | ||
| And he told the committee that he was not aware of any involvement by President Biden in the financial conduct of his relatives' businesses, much less any transactions into or out of then-Vice President's bank account. | ||
| Related to business conducted by any family member. | ||
| And the list goes on. | ||
| We've already talked about Lev Parnas and Ruud Giuliani. | ||
| The reason is you bring in the fact witnesses and your case goes down the drain. | ||
| So let's talk about what your allegations are. | ||
| $15 million to nine Biden family members from 2014 to 2019. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, was Joe Biden president of the United States? | ||
| From 2014 to 2019? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, he was not. | |
| And in fact, from 2017 to 2021, he was a private citizen, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's my understanding correct. | |
| Mr. Gerhardt, am I correct that the framers made very clear that conduct of as private citizens are best left for the legal system, not the impeachment process? | ||
| Is that right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| Now, even yesterday in releasing 700 pages of documents, Chairman Smith admitted that he's not an expert in the timeline, which seems to encapsulate this investigation to a T. Because here we are seeing texts and emails from 2017. | ||
| We're seeing Department of Justice emails from 2020 when it was the Donald Trump Justice Department. | ||
| And all we hear all day long, Biden family, Biden family, Biden family. | ||
| And every time you hear that, you know that it doesn't include Joe Biden. | ||
| If there were nine Biden family members who got money from these business transactions, isn't it striking that Joe Biden was not one of them? | ||
| Pretty remarkable. | ||
| And what we hear is this is an exceedingly complex chain of transactions. | ||
| That's what the House Republicans said. | ||
| Pattern of incredible financial complexity. | ||
| Ms. McClain showed a chart. | ||
| It had an investor. | ||
| It had an investment company that invested money, that received money, and then it went to the investors. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, that's not very complicated, is it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's not really the question. | |
| The question is, what was going on there? | ||
| Was there an investment? | ||
| I'm just asking about the structure. | ||
| Because what we have here, and we hear so much about services and all of this, you know, services or legitimate or product. | ||
| It's an investment company. | ||
| It's a private equity company that invests capital in other corporations and companies. | ||
| That is standard practice. | ||
| Mr. Turley, you said in 2019 that impeachment requires a clear criminal act. | ||
| Is that right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, in fact, in the Trump impeachment, I said repeatedly, you can impeach someone for non-criminal conduct. | |
| What I said then, I'm saying now, which is, I strongly encourage you to look at criminal acts. | ||
| All right, well, that testimony is there. | ||
| No, you can't, because I have 10 seconds left. | ||
| You have said that lying as a president is not impeachable. | ||
| You have said that there's an influence-peddling campaign, but you will acknowledge, will you not, that in order to have a criminal act of public corruption or bribery, There must be under McDonnell an official act in connection to some sort of personal benefit. | ||
| Isn't that right? | ||
| Gentlemen, time's expired, but Mr. Charlie, please answer the question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I can just point you to my testimony. | |
| I talk about... | ||
| Just answer the question! | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because it's a little more complicated. | |
| No, it's not! | ||
| An official act for a personal benefit. | ||
| I'm feisty. | ||
| Gentlemen, time's expired. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Ms. Green from Georgia. | ||
| Yes! | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| On July 25, 2023, Chairman Comer and I sent the Department of Justice a letter requesting information related to victims of Hunter Biden, specifically women he sexually exploited and then claimed as deductions on his taxes through his law firm. | ||
| But he never paid those taxes. | ||
| Not surprisingly, the Department of Justice did not respond. | ||
| After the DOJ's sweetheart Hunter Biden deal fell apart, by the way, led by the Special Counsel David Weiss, on September 8, 2023, Chairman Comer and I again sent a letter to the same DOJ officials asking about victims' rights issues related to Hunter Biden's sexual exploitations. | ||
| DOJ once again failed to respond. | ||
| Well, yesterday I found out why they don't want to talk with us. | ||
| In a new email just released, by the way, from October 2020, could you please display the email? | ||
| The Delaware U.S. Attorney's Office, DOJ, Tax, FBI, and IRS described evidence they have related to MAND Act violations. | ||
| By the way, the subject of the email says MAND Act. | ||
| First, the title. | ||
| The Department of Justice and IRS email in David Weiss' Delaware U.S. Attorney's Office. | ||
| The email states there are communications with trafficker number one and trafficker number two, and that Hunter Biden had escorts who traveled across state lines. | ||
| These women are victims. | ||
| And the Department of Justice is refusing to protect their rights. | ||
| Not only that, David Weiss, the now special counsel in charge of supposedly investigating Hunter Biden, has been clearly covering up Hunter Biden's crimes since before the 2020 election, which is undoubtedly election interference. | ||
| David Weiss is complicit and must be removed from the special counsel. | ||
| We also have more information we subpoenaed. | ||
| Let me give you an even better example based on an interview with one of Hunter Biden's victims with law enforcement. | ||
| It says here that Hunter Biden's victim stated that Biden told her that his father was the vice president and asked to Google search his name. | ||
| Hunter Biden's victim stated she told Biden she was not interested in Google searching his name. | ||
| And just wanted to be paid. | ||
| Hunter Biden's victim stated that Biden then showed her a picture of his father with President Barack Obama. | ||
| Don't forget his father was Vice President then. | ||
| Hunter Biden's victim stated after she was shown the aforementioned picture who was the Vice President of the United States with the President of the United States, Barack Obama. | ||
|
unidentified
|
She became afraid. | |
| After Hunter Biden's victim left the location, she arrived back at her apartment and told her friend, who she was just with, Hunter Biden's victim stated that her friend told her, you have no idea who you're dealing with. | ||
| These women were terrified. | ||
| Terrified. | ||
| He used his father. | ||
| Hunter Biden used his father. | ||
| The Vice President of the United States to threaten his victim, who he had just trafficked for sex, and the Department of Justice refuses to speak to me? | ||
| Hunter Biden needs to be held accountable for his sexual exploitation of women. | ||
| And we've shown more evidence. | ||
| We've shown evidence. | ||
| This is what it looks like. | ||
| This is what Man Act violations look like. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chairman. | |
| I reclaim my time. | ||
| I'd like to challenge the use of this. | ||
| Hunter Biden should be held accountable. | ||
| It is sad that my Democrat colleagues pretend to care about women's rights while allowing Hunter Biden to exploit women. | ||
| This is a shame. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chairman, there's a parliamentary challenge before us. | |
| The point of order. | ||
| And we'll stop the clock for you, Ms. Green. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, Our colleague from Georgia has introduced before pornographic exhibits and displayed things that are really not suitable for children who might be watching. | ||
| And a bathing suit's not suitable, Mr. Raskin? | ||
| I'm saying I would like the member to be instructed to not introduce any pornography today, at least without running into the chair. | ||
| A bathing suit is not pornography, Mr. Raskin. | ||
| Well, we can't see it from down there, so you didn't make it available to the minority before you started. | ||
| I've seen it before. | ||
| It's on the internet. | ||
| It's everywhere. | ||
| And you are submitting a naked woman's body. | ||
| This is a bathing suit. | ||
| This is a bathing suit. | ||
| And it has not been clear before this committee. | ||
| Glasses on. | ||
| Do you wear them or not? | ||
| I have contacts in. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Congratulations. | |
| Chair, that's Ms. Green to proceed. | ||
| Now let's talk about more evidence the Democrats have denied that's turned out to be true. | ||
| We all know Joe Biden is the big guy. | ||
| We confirmed that Hunter Biden was lobbying his father. | ||
| Here's another example that was just released yesterday. | ||
| This is from a timeline from one of the IRS whistleblowers in quotes, an email between Vuk Jeremic, a Serbian politician, and Hunter Biden. | ||
| Did you have a chance to talk with the big man? | ||
| He's receiving my prime minister on Wednesday. | ||
| Please let me know if you think that what we discussed back in D.C. can be mentioned in the meeting. | ||
| My domestic strategy, how I proceed in dealing with my government, very much depends on whether it happens or not. | ||
| This is a conversation between Hunter Biden and Buk Jeremich. | ||
| This is called influence peddling. | ||
| This is how Hunter Biden was selling his father's political power and influence. | ||
| And this is a perfect example. | ||
| This is evidence right here. | ||
| I'd like to remind everyone that this is the beginning of the impeachment inquiry, where we're casting a wide net and finding every single person, whether it's last administration, the administration before that, and whether it's the current administration, that has covered up the crime of the Biden family, and we will continue pulling more evidence forward. | ||
| And I'll let Mr. Goldman go over 30 seconds. | ||
| So we owe you 20 seconds to Mr. Moskowitz. | ||
| It's your lucky day. | ||
| You get five minutes and 20 seconds. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I think it's your lucky day. | ||
| What a day we are having here, isn't it? | ||
| Right? | ||
| As a former director of emergency management, I know a disaster when I see one. | ||
| I mean, by the way, you don't believe me. | ||
| Just ask Steve Bannon. | ||
| Steve Bannon, your guy, just went on and said, you know, perhaps... | ||
| Who's the guy, Steve Bannon? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, you know who Steve Bannon is. | |
| Steve Bannon just went on and said, perhaps the Republicans shouldn't have started with a witness. | ||
| He was talking about Professor Turley, who was going to say right off the bat that there wasn't an impeachable offense. | ||
| I quote, he says, perhaps we should have put him on the maybe list for one of our witnesses. | ||
| So your other witness, Ms. O 'Connor, gave a complete recitation. | ||
| Of the last nine months, eight months of these hearings, she went through some of the greatest hits that have come out, right? | ||
| Everything that has been presented, you know, both in these committees that we've been having, on TV, all of the evidence that you guys have been presenting over the last eight months, all of that together. | ||
| And what does Professor Turley say? | ||
| It says everything we know at this juncture doesn't rise to the level of impeachment. | ||
| Boy, that is awkward. | ||
| I mean, look, it's like political impeachment malpractice. | ||
| But look, let's go back at some of the previous comments that my colleagues have given. | ||
| So the chairman, and I have a slide, the chairman goes on Hannity. | ||
| You guys all know Sean. | ||
| You appear with him on Fox News all the time. | ||
| And Hannity asks a softball question. | ||
| This is a total softball. | ||
| Do you believe that this is now officially the Joe Biden bribery allegation, and do you believe you will be able to prove it? | ||
| The chairman should have just said yes. | ||
| But nope, he says hope so, because he doesn't have any evidence. | ||
| Couldn't say yes. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Next slide, please. | ||
| Then we have Senator Grassley. | ||
| Grassley says what we all know out loud. | ||
| We aren't interested in whether or not the accusations against Vice President Biden are accurate. | ||
| Chuck, we know. | ||
| We know you're not interested in the truth. | ||
| Next slide, please. | ||
| And then Donald Trump, you know, he's giving it all away. | ||
| We know he doesn't. | ||
| He likes to show his cards. | ||
| He says, I think had they not done it to me, perhaps you wouldn't have it being done to them. | ||
| And this is going to happen with indictments, too. | ||
| So, you know, Donald Trump, the tough guy, right? | ||
| What is he saying? | ||
| He's teaching the lesson we all teach our kids, right? | ||
| If they do it to you, go do it back. | ||
| So look, you know, look, we're all appearing now in the world's worst acted TV drama, right? | ||
| It's been picked up for a second season, the real House Republicans of oversight. | ||
| You know, perhaps the material is so bad due to the writer's strike. | ||
| I mean, how many Republicans, Freedom Caucus members, part of the chaos caucus, have said there's no evidence to impeach Joe Biden? | ||
| And again, of course, we know it's not about the evidence. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Here's a list of all of the articles of impeachment. | ||
| That had been filed by my colleagues, some that are on this committee. | ||
| When was the first article filed? | ||
| It was filed in January of 21, two weeks after January 6th. | ||
| So before we had a single hearing, before they went through this myriad of phishing, they were filing articles of impeachment. | ||
| Professor Turley, you said this doesn't rise to the level of impeachment, and you said they shouldn't prejudge. | ||
| Well, here's a list right here. | ||
| Of every single member, many on this committee, prejudging. | ||
| They're filing articles of impeachment. | ||
| COVID, Afghanistan, Hunter Biden. | ||
| And they're all one-upping each other in the Donald Trump Friend Olympics, trying to get invited to the sleepover at Mar-a-Lago. | ||
| I filed articles of impeachment against Merrick Garland. | ||
| No, I filed articles of impeachment against Kamala Harris. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| It is ridiculous. | ||
| But this is what this is about. | ||
| Let me show you. | ||
| It's a simple board, right? | ||
| So all other presidents in the United States. | ||
| 50% of the impeachments. | ||
| Donald Trump, the other 50. Donald Trump has half of the impeachments in American history. | ||
| But you know what? | ||
| He's got 100% of the indictments. | ||
| 100% of all indictments. | ||
| Zero for the other presidents. | ||
| Listen, let me do it another way. | ||
| I want to channel my inner Tim Russert. | ||
| So let me go to the board, right? | ||
| And I don't have Florida, Florida. | ||
| But Donald Trump, impeachment. | ||
| Oh, how many impeachments? | ||
| We got two there. | ||
| How many indictments? | ||
| We got four. | ||
| How many for Biden? | ||
| Zero, zero. | ||
| Donald Trump is right. | ||
| He's sick of winning. | ||
| He's just winning, running away with it. | ||
| And that's why we're here. | ||
| We're here because of meth. | ||
| Such dorks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They can't save Donald Trump. | |
| They can't take away the two impeachments and the four indictments. | ||
| But they can try to put some numbers on the board for Joe Biden. | ||
| But the problem is, when you sling mud, you gotta have mud. | ||
| And they just don't have anything, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| So look, we get it. | ||
| We know why we're here. | ||
| That's why they say the Biden family, the Biden's James Biden, Joe Biden's dog commander. | ||
| But not Joe Biden. | ||
| Never Joe Biden. | ||
| So when are you going to have the vote on impeachment, Mr. Chairman? | ||
| What are you scared of? | ||
| Call the vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Come on. | |
| If you all think there's so much evidence, we're here. | ||
| Call the vote on impeachment. | ||
| Impeach him right now. | ||
| I dare you. | ||
| Gentlemen, times expired. | ||
| Chair, no recognition. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I represent the lollipop guild. | |
| Sorry, for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The CEFC of China Energy. | |
| Who is Chairman Yee? | ||
| Chairman Yee and CEFC reportedly had connections to the Chinese military. | ||
| Though it was, in theory, a private company, CEFC has layers of Communist Party committees, which are usually staples of state-owned enterprises. | ||
| Enterprises. | ||
| This CCP-affiliated entity was closely connected with China's Belt and Road Initiative, and there's evidence Joe Biden was in business with it. | ||
| Joe Biden was engaged so closely with Chairman Yee and CEFC that he planned to share office space in Washington, D.C. with him. | ||
| Joe Biden was actually considered a partner. | ||
| Let's break down the evidence. | ||
| The email I have on display shows on September 21st, 2017. | ||
| Yes, we'll talk about that in a minute. | ||
| Hunter Biden emailed the General Manager of House of Sweden, a building in Washington, D.C., to request that keys be made available for office mates Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Jim Biden, Gong Wen Dong, Chairman YI's CFC emissary. | ||
| Not only did Joe Biden share office space with the Chinese Communist Affiliated CFC leadership, his son, Hunter Biden, asked that the signage for the venture be listed as Quote, the Biden Foundation Hudson West, CEFC, U.S. In case it isn't clear that Joe Biden wasn't a partner in these business dealings with CCC affiliate entity with a key to shared office space, the email I now have on display shows that Hunter Biden specifically referenced Joe Biden as his partner in this venture. | ||
| Hunter even shared the personal phone numbers for Joe Biden, whom Hunter Biden refers to as his partner, along with Gong Wen Dong, Chairman Yi's emissary, and Jim Biden. | ||
| The management was told to call Joe Biden if they chose. | ||
| CEFC Chairman Yi, additionally, and his president, James Jinping. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I ask you now to accept the end of the record. | ||
| This email dated September 21st, 2017, showing Joe Biden's involvement in sharing of office space with the family CCP League business partner, Now, let me ask you a question. | ||
| Who do you think I'm referring to? | ||
| Who has a family of high-ranking government officials receiving tons of money? | ||
| Cars and luxury items from a foreign government. | ||
| You might have said Senator Menendez. | ||
| And you would be right. | ||
| But Hunter Biden also received those same things. | ||
| Mr. Turley, in your experience, is it concerning that a public official said as Joe Biden is involved with the CEFC, China Energy Company with ties to CCP, and Chairman Yee, who was later detained by China for fraud? | ||
| Well, it's certainly a concern that some of these individuals have been either accused of or has been convicted of fraud, including one by the United States government. | ||
| The question is whether that conduct extended to the vice president or the president today and whether that's part of a continuum of conduct. | ||
| Mr. Dudinsky, when you see a pattern of problems, particularly in corruption, doesn't that pattern usually continue? | ||
| It's a cover-up. | ||
| Do you agree with that statement? | ||
| I do. | ||
| We call it pattern evidence, and that's what we look for when we're doing investigations, to see what's continuing in that regard. | ||
| So if you were started prior as a vice president, we would continue through this as a private citizen. | ||
| You'd see it also as a president. | ||
| So those would be aspects you would follow through, right? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Now, for all three of you, real quick. | ||
| The other side has said over and over again, you've given no information. | ||
| But isn't it true that we should be looking to you for establishment? | ||
| I'm not an attorney, neither are a bunch of these folks here. | ||
| Shouldn't we be utilizing your expertise to go get that information to make sure it's valid? | ||
| John, Mr. Turley, would you agree with that? | ||
| I agree. | ||
| My testimony tried to lay out the historical baseline for an inquiry. | ||
| This is just the beginning of that formal inquiry. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor? | ||
| My testimony was to aid in understanding what the whistleblowers had brought forward. | ||
| And my testimony was centered around conducting an unbiased investigation and getting to the truth. | ||
| See, unbelievable. | ||
| I think this is just so perfectly set up. | ||
| We wanted the very basis of this, and we wanted a slow, methodical, make sure it is done appropriately. | ||
| You know, it just overwhelms me when we start to see the rhetoric that comes out of that aside, and especially the show that we just saw. | ||
| You know, that belongs on Saturday Night Live. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, a unanimous consent motion? | ||
| Request, rather. | ||
| I would like to enter six different instances of the Devin Archer transcript. | ||
| And it's been entered twice, but if you want to enter it again, go ahead. | ||
| Yeah, well, there are six ones where he said that all they discussed was the weather. | ||
| Yeah, Mr. Coleman, we'll enter in the whole entire transcript for the third time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'd like to ask for unanimous consent to enter a October 23, 2020 Wall Street Journal article that states, text messages and emails provided to the journal by Mr. Bobulinski don't show either Hunter Biden or James Biden discussing a role for Joe Biden in the venture. | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Chair recognizes Ms. Tlaib. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chairman, just before also, I'd like to enter into the record, on behalf of Congressman Crockett, all of Donald Trump's indictments, and so I'd like to also enter those into the record. | |
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Ms. Tlaib. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much, Chair Comer, and of course, our wonderful Ranking Member Raskin. | |
| It is great to be on this committee, and when I first came in, I looked up on the wall and saw the incredible former chair of our House Oversight Committee, Elijah Cummins, and it reminded me of our first meeting, our first committee hearing here in this chamber. | ||
| What are you wearing? | ||
| It was incredibly powerful. | ||
| I don't know, Mr. Turley, if you know, do you know what the subject matter of that hearing was? | ||
| I don't. | ||
| It was around insulin. | ||
| Price gouging of insulin. | ||
| And the first witness was a mother of twins who had to ration her insulin between the two children. | ||
| It was incredible because at that moment I thought, this is exactly the committee I want to be on. | ||
| Here doing what is needed for the American people and fighting back against greed and a number of broken systems and processes that I think, again, leave many of our families behind. | ||
| But here we are, though, doing the bidding of a twice-impeached, indicted former president instead of working for the people of our country. | ||
| Mr. O 'Connor, 47,395. | ||
| Do you know what that is, Ms. O 'Connor? | ||
| I don't know what number you're referring to. | ||
| That's the number of active-duty reserve men and women serving our nation's armed forces in Kentucky who's going to be forced to go without pay because... | ||
| Because of the shutdown. | ||
| And I should know that because? | ||
| No, it's because you have nothing to say about any of this because you're not a fact. | ||
| You don't have any facts. | ||
| You weren't there. | ||
| So, Ms. O 'Connor, don't take it personally. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, don't take it personally that you are here being used for somebody out there being indicted. | ||
| This is not helping the American people. | ||
| Mr. Gephardt, what is this over here? | ||
| What does this say? | ||
| Well, one thing I'm learning in this hearing is I need new glasses. | ||
| But that's the countdown to the shutdown. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| What is it? | ||
| A couple days here? | ||
| Two days and eight hours. | ||
| So, Mr. Dubinsky, do you know who said the following? | ||
| We had thousands of members across the country who returned holiday presents because they needed cash, missed a mortgage payment, took out a short-term loan, and ran up their credit card debt because they had no paycheck for the month. | ||
| Point of order, Mr. Chairman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
State your point. | |
| And stop the clock for Mr. Lee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chair. | |
| I appreciate that. | ||
| All government employees are going to get paid at the end of this month. | ||
| And also, the Democrat Party forced shutdowns on the American economy. | ||
| Reclaiming, Mr. Chairman, we're seeing people lose their jobs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's not a point of order. | |
| It's okay. | ||
| That's not a point of order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's going to be not true. | |
| Hold on, hold on, Chair. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We can't allow people to be misleading the American people. | |
| We all know. | ||
| I was here. | ||
| I was here in 2019 when the shutdown was there for 35 days. | ||
| Because you know what? | ||
| You don't know who said this? | ||
| I lost track of this. | ||
| I know. | ||
| Doreen Greenwald. | ||
| She's a member of the National Treasure Employees Union. | ||
| She said 150,000 workers in 35 agencies. | ||
| She said this was the irresponsible 2018-19 Republican shutdown. | ||
| From the previous administration. | ||
| Do you know she also went on to say, because this is important, this is what this committee should be used for. | ||
| She went on to say, they stood in line at food banks, pulled their children from childcare, were unable to put gas in their cars and beg creditors for grace. | ||
| This is not how the United States of America should treat its own employees. | ||
| That is verbatim from a federal employee that did not get paid at last shutdown. | ||
| So let's not lie to the American people. | ||
| Right now, the Department of Agriculture will be forced to stop processing housing loans, which provided over 675 million people and 3,431 families in rural North Carolina. | ||
| That's all going to stop. | ||
| The Department of Ag would be forced to stop processing a loan in Wisconsin, about $181 million loans that are impacting rural Wisconsin. | ||
| Small Business Administration, y 'all, would stop processing small business while halting over $284 million in funding small businesses in Alabama. | ||
| That's just one state. | ||
| The federal government shutdown has real consequences. | ||
| I would like to submit, Mr. Chair, to the record, FEMA funding would be impacted if the government shuts down. | ||
| This is in regards to the impact in Florida specifically. | ||
| If the government shuts down and the impact on the many, many humanitarian aid that has to go to many homeowners that were impacted. | ||
| Without objection to order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In my district, 56,000. | |
| Do you know what that is? | ||
| That's a number of children that will lose their child care spot, the spot to receive child care. | ||
| State, countrywide, is 3.5 million children impacted. | ||
| This is how many children, again, our caucus, again, Republicans, are literally just putting aside and saying, no, we're going to do this instead. | ||
| We're going to go and bring the campaigning, the ugliest toxicity that our families don't need right now into this chamber instead of doing what we need to do, which is making sure we have a functional government that provides for our families. | ||
| When it comes to dysfunction, to all our witnesses here, you are now part of it. | ||
| You came to this committee. | ||
| Oh, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're overachievers when it comes to dysfunction. | |
| Why stop at destroying child care across our country? | ||
| They're devastating public health, education, social safety nets in our country. | ||
| And Ms. O 'Connor, you are part of it now because you came here. | ||
| Ladies, time's expired. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Mr. Burchett from Tennessee. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| President Biden has sent over $110 billion to taxpayers' hard-earned money to Ukraine and wants to send even more. | ||
| Yet his son failed to pay any taxes on the millions of dollars he received from Ukrainian companies. | ||
| Many folks in East Tennessee can't afford to buy even their dadgum groceries, let alone a home or an automobile. | ||
| But these decent people and Americans all over the country still pay their taxes. | ||
| The fact is, if your last name is Biden, you don't have to play by the same rules. | ||
| Who's going to write the check for the money Hunter Biden didn't pay now that it's too late to bring charges to these taxpayers? | ||
| Who's paying taxes on the $250,000 that China sent to President Biden's Delaware address? | ||
| I'll tell you who. | ||
| It's the hardworking Americans that got to get up every morning that don't come into work at 10 o 'clock and take two hours for lunch and then walk out of here in their Brooks Brothers suit with their jacket thrown over their dadgum shoulder claiming that they worked hard because they know they didn't work hard. | ||
| The people back home are working hard and they're paying their dadgum taxes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yet... | |
| The Biden family doesn't have to. | ||
| This past July, two high-level IRS agents, Gary Shapely and Joseph Ziegler, testified before our committee. | ||
| They painted a very disturbing picture, worse than one of Hunter Biden's paintings, by the way, of misconduct and obstruction within the Department of Justice criminal investigation of Hunter Biden and the Biden family business dealings. | ||
| They testified that Hunter Biden should have been charged with a tax felony, not a misdemeanor. | ||
| Hunter was saved by Merrick Garland's decision to change the department's longstanding policy to charge the most serious offense that can be proven. | ||
| This paved the path for Hunter Biden to attempt to plead guilty for two tax-related misdemeanors rather than any of the six felonies recommended by the department's I've literally seen people in Tennessee be charged with more for traffic violations. | ||
| Moreover, Mr. Garland's decision does not align with Chapter 10 of the Criminal Tax Manual, which prohibits prosecutors from allowing a defendant to plead to a misdemeanor when elements of a felony can be proven. | ||
| David Wise should have followed department policy and charged Hunter Biden with tax felonies. | ||
| The Department of Justice should have ensured Hunter paid his back taxes, just like any other person in this position. | ||
| Hardworking Tennessee and shouldn't have to subsidize the Biden family's crime spree. | ||
| I'd like to know that any of them paid any of their dadgum taxes. | ||
| I yield the remainder of my time to my friend from Ohio, Jim Jordan. | ||
| I thank the gentleman for yielding. | ||
| Mr. Turley, I want to get back to what you said in your written statement about the abuse of power model. | ||
| That we've seen in other administrations and you think may exist here with this administration. | ||
| I just want to look at the gentleman before me just talking about the way the Justice Department ran the investigation into Hunter Biden. | ||
| And some of the things we've learned from the whistleblowers were they were prevented from taking certain investigative steps. | ||
| They couldn't interview the adult grandchildren of the president. | ||
| They couldn't execute a search warrant on a storage unit without first tipping off the defense counsel. | ||
| They couldn't use in interviews they got to do. | ||
| Only a couple. | ||
| They couldn't use the term big guy. | ||
| They couldn't look at political figure one, which we know is the big guy, is Joe Biden. | ||
| They couldn't investigate tax years 2014 and 2015 because they let the statute, they couldn't charge for that, I should say, because they let the statute of limitations expire. | ||
| Is it an abuse of power when the Biden Justice Department stops investigative steps that all potentially lead to Joe Biden? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It certainly can be if there's a linkage to the president. | |
| If you look back, I think Article 2 of the Nixon impeachment was an abuse of power provision that dealt with that type of nexus. | ||
| Article 1, I think, of the Trump impeachment, I think, dealt with that type of nexus. | ||
| You just have to establish those linkages as you go forward. | ||
| I want you to elaborate on something you said earlier, too. | ||
| I wrote it down. | ||
| You said confirmed corrupt influence peddling operation. | ||
| Can you elaborate on what you think that entails? | ||
| That's pretty strong words. | ||
| You said the Biden influence peddling scheme was confirmed corrupt influence peddling operation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that it's now In my view, at least, largely unassailable. | |
| People that have long been critical of some of the investigations have acknowledged recently, particularly after the Archer interview, that this was an influence-peddling effort, whether it was an illusion or not, as part of the task for the inquiry. | ||
| But it seems to be abundantly clear from these emails and statements and now sworn testimony that Hunter Biden and his associates were selling Access to Joe Biden. | ||
| And the question is whether any of that effort resulted in decisions and changes being made by Joe Biden, and also the degree to which he knew of it, directed it, encouraged it. | ||
| That's all the subject of an inquiry that has to be determined. | ||
| It can be disproven or proven, but that's what lays ahead of you. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I yield back to the gentleman. | ||
| I'll say the gentleman for you. | ||
| Gentlemen, the Times expired. | ||
| Chair, do I recognize Ms. Porter from California? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much, Mr. Comer. | |
| Mr. Dubinsky, do you believe that this impeachment inquiry has merit? | ||
| Again, I'm not a legal scholar. | ||
| I'm a forensic accountant. | ||
| I think from what I've seen, there's merit for the inquiry to look for other information now. | ||
| So I'm going to say yes, you believe the impeachment inquiry has merit. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, do you believe this impeachment inquiry is legitimate? | ||
| I don't know enough about the House rules and how things are supposed to work here to know whether it is or not. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Mr. Turley, do you agree? | ||
| Do you think this impeachment inquiry has merit? | ||
| Or is legitimate? | ||
| I do. | ||
| I think that the House has passed a threshold for an inquiry that's separate from the question of the articles of impeachment. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| A veteran of several impeachments said that an impeachment inquiry without a floor vote by the Congress would, quote, create a process completely devoid of any merit or legitimacy. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, who said that? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Ms. O'Connor, who said this? | ||
| I made an objection along those lines to the earlier decision from Speaker Pelosi to go forward without a House vote and I've made the same objection today that I think the best practices in going forward is to do that and what I've said in my testimony Is that it's not required of the Constitution. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Professor Charlie, it could be my time. | ||
| I agree with you. | ||
| We're not talking about whether it's required legally. | ||
| I'm just asking you, can you say again for the community, do you know who made this statement, and if so, who? | ||
| I don't. | ||
| I've made an objection along those lines. | ||
| It could be my time. | ||
| This quote is a statement from now speaker Kevin McCarthy. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, do you know the date of the House floor vote on this impeachment inquiry? | ||
| No, I don't think there was a House floor vote. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, do you remember any House vote? | ||
| I have not been following that. | ||
| Professor Turley, was there a House vote on this impeachment inquiry? | ||
| Not that I know of. | ||
| So, this House vote didn't happen. | ||
| There has not been a House vote to move forward with this impeachment inquiry. | ||
| So we haven't followed what the Speaker himself, Mr. McCarthy, has said is the process that we should be following so that an impeachment inquiry would have merit or legitimacy, which is something that I think all Americans on both sides of the aisle should expect investigations or inquiries like this to have. | ||
| I think Americans should Today, by having this hearing, Republicans have changed their tune. | ||
| I think I know why Speaker McCarthy is going back on his conviction. | ||
| His members are demanding an impeachment, but their months and months of investigating our president have not revealed yet any evidence that he himself has committed crimes. | ||
| But Speaker McCarthy wants to keep his job, so he is set on delivering an impeachment inquiry, whether or not there is any evidence. | ||
| And even if, in his own words, that impeachment inquiry would be devoid of any merit or legitimacy. | ||
| Mr. Dubinsky, I have one final question. | ||
| What is the title of this hearing? | ||
| The title was The Basis for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Joseph Biden. | ||
| But according to Speaker McCarthy, there isn't a legitimate or meritorious basis yet for this hearing. | ||
| And no amount of noise on the other side of the aisle is going to change this. | ||
| As Speaker McCarthy said, in his words, this impeachment inquiry is devoid of any merit or legitimacy. | ||
| Wow! | ||
| I just did it. | ||
| At the very end of an extremely contentious hearing, I found something. | ||
| That Speaker McCarthy was correct about. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| I just have a unanimous consent request. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I request to submit to the record a Washington Post fact check that pointed out that the Committee Republican Zone memo fails to support the claim about shell companies. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chair, I have a point. | |
| Without objection. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chair. | |
| Okay, Ms. Tlaib. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to submit for the record, if I may, an article from Augusta Chronicle says, government shutdown, Georgia military service members will see no pay. | |
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Ms. Bobert from Colorado for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Boom. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Joe Biden had dinner with Hunter and his business associates, including Yelena Batarina, a Russian tech and energy oligarch who was married to the mayor. | ||
| of Moscow at the time. | ||
| Hunter then received $3.5 million in payouts from Batarina. | ||
| She was not sanctioned after the invasion of Crimea. | ||
| Joe Biden has maintained for years that he was not involved in his son's business dealings. | ||
| Yet we have proof that Joe Biden attended business dinners with his son while he was vice president of the United States of America. | ||
| Here you have an excerpt from Devin Archer's transcribed interview. | ||
| On the screen, if we could get that up there. | ||
| During his interview, Archer testified to the fact that on multiple occasions, then-Vice President Joe Biden attended functions with business associates of his and Hunter Biden. | ||
| One such example is laid out on the screen. | ||
| Don't show your laptop screen, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Archer is explaining here that in the spring of 2014... | |
| If we could get this slide up. | ||
| Devin and Hunter had dinner at Cafe Milano with several of their business associates. | ||
| One of these attendees was Yelena Batarina. | ||
| Miss Batarina was, at the time, the richest woman in Russia. | ||
| And she was married to the former mayor of Moscow. | ||
| As previously stated. | ||
| Interestingly, on February 14, 2014, Ms. Botterina wired Hunter Biden and Devin Archer $3.5 million. | ||
| It is still uncertain what legitimate service Hunter Biden provided to Ms. Botterina in exchange for this large sum of money, if any at all. | ||
| Furthermore, it is concerning how Hunter Biden and Devin Archer moved this money from bank account. | ||
| And it is also convenient that the U.S. government never placed Ms. Botterina on their public sanctions lists after Russia invaded Crimea. | ||
| This billionaire continued to invade public sanctions lists even after Russia invaded Ukraine. | ||
| I want these facts to be clear to the American people. | ||
| The billionaire continued to evade the public sanctions lists. | ||
| After Russia invaded Ukraine, Joe Biden's attendance at this dinner shows that Joe Biden's involvement in Hunter Biden's deals was more than just the illusion of access. | ||
| It was access. | ||
| There were direct benefits leading to Hunter and his business partners after Joe's attendance at this Cafe Milano dinner. | ||
| This pay-to-play type of engagement was selling direct access. | ||
| To Joe Biden and the Office of the Vice President of the United States. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter the record the third bank records memorandum produced by this Committee on Oversight and Accountability on August 9, 2023. | ||
| Without objection to order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Turley, as an expert on constitutional issues and impeachment, where does selling access, Well, it's two separate questions. | |
| What I've suggested is for the four areas for articles of impeachment that you can explore, you can look at some of the criminal code, and that includes things like bribery under 201, Hobbs, the Hobbs Act cases. | ||
| And those have different standards that I think are relevant. | ||
| In terms of the impeachable standard itself, there's been obviously decades of debate about that. | ||
| I would hope that there would be general agreement that public corruption... | ||
| If the president engaged in public corruption, any sort of peddling of influence. | ||
| Now, as a follow-up, in previous impeachment inquiries, have actions such as influence peddling and pay-to-play schemes like this been deemed as offensive to the conscience of the American people in such a way to warrant an investigation? | ||
| Well, I think that there's certainly a basis for this inquiry to go forward. | ||
| You know, my position is simply that this is early on in an inquiry in terms of linking these, which are still just allegations to the president, and that's the linkage you have to establish. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Turley. | ||
| It is far time for Joe Biden to stop lying. | ||
| Foreign business deals. | ||
| He intentionally misled the American people by using complex maneuvers to pocket millions of dollars from our adversary. | ||
| He lied when he was vice president. | ||
| He lied as a candidate to gain the office of president of the United States. | ||
| Now this committee has uncovered the truth, and it is time to impeach this compromise, Commander and Chief. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I yield. | ||
| Point of order, if I could. | ||
| I didn't want to interrupt the good general lady from Colorado. | ||
| You cannot engage in personalities against the President of the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We've established that, Mr. Ranking Member. | |
| Okay, and so you cannot say that Joe Biden lied. | ||
| First of all, he didn't lie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Ranking Member, we've established that he didn't lie. | |
| What? | ||
| You can't say it, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I hope you agree with me. | ||
| This is, I can provide you all the case. | ||
| This is, listen. | ||
| Reclaiming order, Chair, now recognize Mr. Ivey. | ||
| Ivey, I can send motion for Mr. Ivey. | ||
| I would like to reintroduce once again the Devin Archer transcript and especially point to when he says that Hunter Biden was not involved. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We've re-entered it. | |
| This will be the fifth time. | ||
| Without objection, we've re-entered the Devin Archer transcript for the fifth time. | ||
| Now, Chair, recognize Mr. Ivey from Maryland. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I appreciate the chance to let me wave in today because it's such an important hearing. | ||
| Mr. Turley, it's good to see you again. | ||
| You should get office space here on the Hill, I think. | ||
| This is our third or fourth committee hearing together. | ||
| I do want to say this. | ||
| Impeachment is one of the greatest powers that the Constitution gives to the House of Representatives. | ||
| And I think it's important to make sure that we treat it with that level of esteem. | ||
| But I think what's going on or has gone on here in the... | ||
| In the House for several months now is that that power has been abused. | ||
| And kicking off this hearing today, and I appreciate that the word probably used most today is if, because a lot of these are statements that are made in the forms of allegations, but with respect to connecting them to the president, that hasn't happened. | ||
| There's a lot of, well, if this is true, then that. | ||
| And I don't think that's sufficient to move forward at this point. | ||
| I appreciate Mr. Turley's comment. | ||
| I think you were saying before Ms. Boebert cut you off that it was early and that Mr. Biden hadn't been linked at this point. | ||
| I think that's true. | ||
| He hasn't been linked to any of these allegations that have been raised. | ||
| I did want to talk about a couple of them specifically. | ||
| With respect to the The prosecutor issue, the removal of Prosecutor General Shokin. | ||
| A couple of points I want to make on that front. | ||
| Key one, I think, is that the removal of Shokin was actually detrimental to Hunter Biden and Burisma because it was pretty clear based on statements and testimony that's been given here in the House before these committees and other instances that he was Not doing a great job, to say the least. | ||
| He was sitting on the investigation. | ||
| He wasn't moving it forward. | ||
| I think there have been statements that have been made with respect to the IMF pressuring to have him removed by threatening to withhold $40 billion in international assistance unless he was removed. | ||
| President Biden's request to have him removed along those lines. | ||
| Was actually consistent not only with what he pushed for, or the IMF pushed for, but what others were pushing for as well, including Senator Johnson, I believe, on that front. | ||
| So what we've got here is an effort to argue by our Republican colleagues that the removal of this prosecutor, President Biden, asking or pressing to have him removed, was in some way an effort to undermine an investigation for Burisma. | ||
| But it's pretty clear, I think, based on, again, the testimony that we've received and that's been presented in Congress before and published in some of our documents, that that's the exact opposite. | ||
| Things were moving forward, not moving forward with him there. | ||
| They were more likely to move forward without him. | ||
| And so there's really no linkage there between the president... | ||
| And derailing any kind of investigation. | ||
| With respect to the Devin Archer statements, Devin Archer said he's confirmed that over his decade-long business relationship with Hunter Biden, he never heard Hunter Biden discuss business with his father, either on phone calls or in person. | ||
| And I did want to add this as well. | ||
| Mr. Biden's bookkeeper, Eric Schwerin, With respect to the Weiss issue, and I know that's been an issue that's been pushed a lot, too. | ||
| That argument is that Weiss was derailing the investigation. | ||
| Into Hunter Biden and slowing it down. | ||
| They are trying. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, the key points on that obviously are the fact that Weiss was appointed by President Trump. | |
| And as Congressman Buck said a few days ago over the Judiciary Committee hearings, if the President had removed Weiss when he first came into office, Republicans would have argued that That was an effort to derail the investigation against Hunter Biden. | ||
| In fact, when the Attorney General testified, he noted that he had Senate Republicans who explicitly wanted him and sort of pressed for in their personal meetings that he promised not to remove Weiss or replace him. | ||
| And we've had other testimony with respect to the FBI supervisors, the special agent who was in the SAC for the investigation. | ||
| working with Mr. Weiss. | ||
| Question, have you ever known U.S. Attorney Weiss to make prosecutorial decisions based upon political influence? | ||
| Answer, no. | ||
| Have you ever known any of the AUSAs in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Office of Delaware to let their prosecutorial decisions be guided by political interference answer no so I apologize for running over but gentlemen gentlemen | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I'd like to enter into the record a bipartisan letter signed by Senators Portman, Johnson, and Kirk urging Ukraine to remove Mr. Shokin because of his own corruption. | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| Mr. Frye. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Professor, you know, in a trial, there's an exchange of evidence back and forth. | ||
| What we see here today, we've presented evidence. | ||
| I mean... | ||
| The other side is a lot of bluster and theatrics. | ||
| And also in a trial, you have affirmative defenses. | ||
| I think the only affirmative defenses that are coming from the other side is, one, Donald Trump, like the ultimate affirmative defense that you could just say his name and all wrongdoing is gone away. | ||
| I mean... | ||
| Lisa McLean talked about this earlier, that he is living in their head. | ||
| I would also submit to you that he's tap dancing in their head because that's all they talk about. | ||
| The second affirmative defense, according to the Democrats, is this magical shutdown clock that they have. | ||
| But would it surprise you that every single appropriations bill that has tried to come before the floor, they have voted. | ||
| They don't want a debate on government funding. | ||
| They want to shut down the government. | ||
| This is the kind of stuff that they're doing. | ||
| And of course, the third affirmative defense, as you well know at this point. | ||
| Is attack the witness, right? | ||
| You don't have the facts. | ||
| You don't have the law. | ||
| You have theatrics and you just go after the witness. | ||
| It's like we live in amnesia. | ||
| Like they have this constant amnesia. | ||
| We have statements from the ranking member about you don't need a vote on the floor, but that's what they talk about. | ||
| You know, for the past nine months, we've worked tirelessly to analyze all the evidence. | ||
| Every single week, there's more evidence that drops. | ||
| And this is despite the FBI. | ||
| This is despite the DOJ. | ||
| We have witness interviews, accounts of confidential human sources, whistleblower testimony. | ||
| They haven't disputed that at all. | ||
| Bank records, suspicious activity reports, text messages, WhatsApp messages. | ||
| It's endless. | ||
| And despite what my friends on the other side of the aisle may say, House Republicans have always held that this investigation Should follow proper procedure and be done the right way. | ||
| Which is why we're here today. | ||
| We know that Biden family members were complicit in and benefited from Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings. | ||
| And as the lens begins to focus, and as the evidence begins to mount, we uncover more and more about Joe Biden's involvement. | ||
| Today I want to focus on the FD-1023, a document that shows a conversation between a confidential human source and a Ukrainian business executive, Nikola Zlochevsky. | ||
| Let's dive into a few key points. | ||
| The source asked Lechevsky about the Ukrainian prosecutor's investigation into Burisma. | ||
| He replied, don't worry. | ||
| Hunter will take care of all these issues through his dad. | ||
| Two, although Hunter Biden was labeled as stupid, that the guy's dog was smarter than Hunter, the source was told in 2016 that Hunter Biden was brought onto Burisma's board to protect them. | ||
| Three, big fact, Hunter and Joe Biden both told Lechevsky that he should keep Hunter Biden on the board. | ||
| And of course, he received a million dollars a year. | ||
| Point four, after the election, Zlochewski said it cost $5 million to pay one Biden and $5 million to another, meaning Joe Biden. | ||
| And point five, in 2019, Zlochewski said he didn't send any funds directly to the big guy. | ||
| I wonder what that means. | ||
| We talked about that a lot today. | ||
| Because according to Zlochewski, it would take investigators 10 years to find the records of payments to Joe Biden. | ||
| If these allegations are true, and there's... | ||
| There's a reason why it was so hard to put together. | ||
| This was done deliberately and on purpose. | ||
| So we're here months later. | ||
| We finally get this document released to the public. | ||
| Mr. Turley, what in your eyes is the most serious allegation outlined in the FD 1023? | ||
| Well, first of all, I'm not someone that puts a great deal of emphasis on these types of field reports from From sources. | ||
| But this was not just any source. | ||
| This was a source that was not just trusted. | ||
| It received a considerable amount of money from the FBI and had a long track record. | ||
| So it does come with that degree of... | ||
| What I think an inquiry has to do is to drill down on the 1023. | ||
| There may be nothing there when you drill down, but there may be bribery. | ||
| And of course, that's the second offense that is mentioned for impeachment. | ||
| But what makes the 1023 concerning is the overall context. | ||
| And this is one of the reasons why when Representative Goldman was asking me about bribery, it's a little more complex because you have Section 201, you've got the Hobbs Act, and you've all... | ||
| There are all these cases that suggest that it is public corruption in a lot of different forms. | ||
| So, really, you're sort of at the water's edge here. | ||
| Everything that has gone so far, from what I can see, has been tracking money from banks often... | ||
| Transnational transactions that have arrived at the United States. | ||
| What we haven't seen is the back end of those transfers. | ||
| To what extent can you track that money with regard to the Bidens themselves? | ||
| And that, I suppose, will come out through an inquiry. | ||
| But until you have those interstitial relationships, you don't quite know what you have. | ||
| How can we use this document and maybe other documents that we have to expand the case? | ||
| And how pivotal do you think that this document is to the case? | ||
| Well, I think that in an inquiry, when someone who is trusted by the FBI suggests that there was actual bribery involving the president, you need to contact everyone involved, including the source for the 1023. | ||
| But also, this is secondhand information, so you're going to have to pursue. | ||
| uh with the references made by that source and you do it in good faith and to see if there's a there there thank you mr chairman without a yield back i'd like to make a motion for unanimous consent for what Mr. Chairman, | ||
| I ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record a Washington Post article titled The Republican Case Against Biden Takes a Body Blow from Fox News because they failed to show any connection and their evidence is too far down the path to admit that they are wrong. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Chair recognizes Mr. Edwards. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chair. | |
| I'd just like to start out by... | ||
| Commenting, while this is not directly affecting this impeachment inquiry, I am so excited to have heard so many times from that side of the room how concerned folks are over keeping the government running. | ||
| Because you're all going to get a chance in just a few hours to put your money where your mouth is and vote on some bills that's going to keep the government funded. | ||
| And I hope... | ||
| It's as important to you when you go to cast those votes as what you said that it is this afternoon. | ||
| We've heard today that how many times Joe Biden has lied. | ||
| He's lied about his role in his family's business dealings. | ||
| We've also heard how in the White House he's struggled to keep up with new evidence about consistently shifted It's messaging on President Biden's involvement in Hunter Biden's foreign business affairs. | ||
| This summer, White House spokesperson Ian Sams shifted the White House's messaging to now claim that President Biden was never in business with his son. | ||
| This is dramatically different than what we heard from the White House in their previous claims, We were told that President Biden had no knowledge of Hunter Biden's business dealings. | ||
| And yet again, the committee has revealed evidence that then-Vice President Biden had direct knowledge of and involvement in Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings. | ||
| Kenneth Rockyshev is a Kazakh Kazashtani Oglyogark, who was a director at Kazakhstan's state-owned oil company. | ||
| Importantly, Rakhishev maintains ties to Kareem Mazimov, who became Prime Minister of Kazakhstan on April 2, 2014. | ||
| On April 22, 2014, Rakhishev wired $142,300. | ||
| To an account associated with Hunter Biden, Rosemount Seneca Bohai. | ||
| The next day, that same amount was sent to a car dealership in New Jersey for an expensive sports car for Hunter Biden. | ||
| Around the same time as the payment for Hunter Biden's sports car, then Vice President Biden attended a dinner with I believe that we have a photo of those here. | ||
| There they are. | ||
| And here, on another screen, we see a photograph with Mr. Mazumov on the right Standing with Joe Biden and Hunter Biden along with Mr. Rakeshev on the left. | ||
| I don't know if that picture came up or not. | ||
| Additionally, in April 2015, then-Vice President Biden attended another dinner in Washington, D.C. with Prime Minister Massimov, Hunter Biden, and Devin Archer. | ||
| Clearly, Hunter Biden was selling the Biden brand. | ||
| And all the access and political favors that came along with it. | ||
| This transcript, I believe we're going to see it come up on the screen, is taken from the committee's interview of Devin Archer earlier this summer. | ||
| In this excerpt, Archer reveals that then-Vice President Biden hosted Hunter Biden. | ||
| Archer and Mark Holtzman, who was... | ||
| Then the chairman of Kazakhstan's largest bank for breakfast at the Naval Observatory, where Holtzman discussed who was going to be the next UN Secretary General with Vice President Biden. | ||
| Mr. Holtzman was lobbying for Kareem Massimov to receive the position. | ||
| That meeting occurred on July 7, 2015, shortly after Vice President had dined again with Massimov at Cafe Milano in Washington, D.C. Was Massimov trying to cash in? | ||
| After all, a meeting with Vice President of the United States when trying to become UN Secretary just might be worth it for a sports car. | ||
| Around that same time, Hunter Biden and Devin Archer were pursuing energy projects in Kazakhstan on behalf of the corrupted Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which was trying to expand its business into the country. | ||
| This is another clear example of Hunter Biden peddling access to his father and Joe Biden participating in the influence peddling scheme. | ||
| Hunter seeks business opportunities in a foreign country and provides access to and political favors through his father's office to get paid. | ||
| Mr. Chair, I see I'm out of time, so I'll yield. | ||
| Gentlemen, time's expired. | ||
| Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent request. | ||
| I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record of memorandum issued by staff of the Committee on Judiciary and Oversight, explaining how the testimony of five senior IRS and FBI agents has been deployed. | ||
| Without objection, Chair, I recognize Ms. Langworthy from New York for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| For years, we've heard shifting denials and deflections from President Biden relating to his son's foreign business deals and ventures. | ||
| In fact, we know that President Biden has lied to the American people at least 16 times about his family's business schemes. | ||
| In August 2019, Joe Biden told reporters, quote, first of all, I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their business, period. | ||
| End quote. | ||
| Joe Biden continued to double down on this statement throughout the 2020 presidential race. | ||
| In September 2019, Joe Biden again stated, These lies continued throughout the 2020 presidential race. | ||
| It was only recently that the Biden administration has grudgingly begun to shift their answer on what Joe Biden knew about his son's foreign business deals. | ||
| In June of this year, the White House changed its position by claiming that the president was not in business with his son. | ||
| Moreover, media and members across the aisle continue to run cover for President Biden, repeatedly shifting the goalpost and repeatedly peddling the notion that Hunter Biden was selling the, quote, illusion of access. | ||
| Evidence discovered by this committee in its investigation into the Biden brand, however, has revealed Hunter's product went well beyond illusions of access. | ||
| On display is an example of actual access to the then-Vice President. | ||
| During his transcribed interview, Devin Archer was questioned about how many times Hunter Biden had put his father on speakerphone while in business meetings. | ||
| Now, Archer made it clear during this whole 10-year That Joe Biden was on speakerphone maybe 20 times while Archer was president. | ||
| And when later interviewed by Tucker Carlson, Archer went on to say, if you're sitting with a foreign business person and then you hear the voice of the vice president, that's prize enough. | ||
| That's pretty impactful stuff. | ||
| Archer later stated, in the rearview, it's an abuse of soft power. | ||
| Now, President Biden's involvement in Hunter's business deals was not overt. | ||
| Joe Biden did not email Hunter asking for Burisma's quarterly reports. | ||
| All it takes for Biden to be involved in Hunter's business dealings is Biden crafting and implementing policy based on promptings from his son and receiving payment in return. | ||
| Mr. Turley, have you ever had your parents call in during an official business meeting? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Members across the aisle have characterized Hunter's speakerphone calls during business meetings as, quote, casual conversation and niceties about the weather and what's going on. | ||
| Now, during a business meeting, have you ever answered a call from a parent or put them on speaker and then proceeded to discuss the weather? | ||
| Not in my case, no. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Would you say that such actions are generally out of the ordinary in the business world? | ||
| I couldn't speak for the whole business world, but it strikes me as being odd. | ||
| Looking at the evidence like this transcript of Devin Archer's testimony and other evidence discussed in today's hearings, can you contrast the level of thoroughness of this committee's investigation compared with the Democrats' impeachment inquiry in 2019? | ||
| Well, I was highly critical of the, obviously, the Trump impeachment and the first Trump impeachment. | ||
| Which I felt did not develop a sufficient record to support the articles. | ||
| I actually said that the investigation had merit to go forward, but that they hadn't established the basis for the articles. | ||
| In the second impeachment, they used what I call the snap impeachment. | ||
| They jettisoned any hearing at all, which I think did do damage to the impeachment process. | ||
| Now, looking at this transcript of Devin Archer's sworn testimony, would you agree that there are inconsistencies with President Biden's statements that he never discussed business with his son, or even later, that he was not in business with his son? | ||
| Well, I think my understanding is that Devin Archer himself was asked that question and said that it was patently false to suggest that President Biden was not aware of his son's business dealings. | ||
| Very good. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I would yield back any time to you. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, over here. | ||
| I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record. | ||
| This article by the New York Post dated September 14, 2023. | ||
| House GOP probing then-Vice President Biden's dodgy breakfast meeting with Kazakh bank official at official residence, showing Vice President Joe Biden taking meetings at the Vice President's residence with his son's business partners. | ||
| Mr. Conner Woodman? | ||
| I assume you've had time to review and hopefully the bank memorandums and the evidence that we derived from the suspicious activity reports about the various bank reports that allege money laundering, allege receiving wires from state-owned entities and things like that. | ||
| What kind of crimes are we talking about there and how often do you run across people Even the most criminal people who have 170 suspicious activity reports. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there was more than about 700 pages were the documents that you released yesterday. | |
| I haven't looked at them all carefully. | ||
| But one factor that continues to be overlooked is the fact that in tax law, there is a concept of constructive receipt. | ||
| If I owe you $100, but I don't want to pay you directly, I don't want any sort of trace, but I know that... | ||
| Representative Gordon pays your bills. | ||
| I will pay him, knowing that he's going to take care of you. | ||
| But you have constructive receipt of that money from me. | ||
| And I think that if the special agents were able to follow the leads that they wanted to develop, they would develop a lot of information that you'd be interested in. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I have another unanimous consent request. | ||
| Just to clarify, because Mr. Langworthy said that it was the Democrats who said that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden talked about the weather. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Point of order. | |
| Is that a point of order? | ||
| I would just like to reduce the Devon Archer testimony where he says they talked about the weather six times. | ||
| Recognize Mr. Biggs. | ||
| My point of order is that is not... | ||
| That is not a point of order. | ||
| You are correct. | ||
| The gentleman from Arizona is correct. | ||
| Chair, we'll now... | ||
| Consent request. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Do you have a unanimous consent? | ||
| Yes, to reintroduce those six pages of testimony from Devin Archer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, for the seventh time without objection. | |
| Chair now recognizes Mr. Perlison. | ||
| Could have just called him and we would have been able to question him. | ||
| As you know, he's headed to prison. | ||
| Chair recognizes Mr. Perlison. | ||
| Oh, who was that Mr. Biggs? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Do you have a point of order? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Mr. Perlison from Missouri. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Professor Turley, could you tell me, would it be illegal or certainly unethical for elected officials to utilize the resources in their office, utilize their staff to financially benefit their family members' business or their own? | ||
| They would. | ||
| Part of the problem with the reason I think the illusion defense is sort of illusory is that if the president was involved in that influence peddling scheme, Yes. | ||
| didn't follow forward. | ||
| And I think that that itself would become an issue of public corruption we'd have to discuss. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| In fact, on multiple occasions, he claimed that he was not involved in his family business dealings. | ||
| However, the work of this committee The reports that we've had from the Treasury Department of Suspicious Activity Reports, the IRS testimony, all tell a different story, all from different sources. | ||
| And even his own staff didn't get the memo that they weren't supposed to communicate with his son's business. | ||
| This email, dated December 4, 2015, shows that Vice President Biden, through his communications staff director, Kate Bettenfield, coordinated a response. | ||
| Two reporters, when they questioned about the conflict of his involvement with Ukraine and his son's involvement with Burisma, she coordinated with not just Hunter, but Hunter Biden's business associate, Eric Schwerin. | ||
| Why is the staff of the President of the United States communicating with a business associate for the President's son? | ||
| Who served as the executive of Hunter Biden's Rosemont Seneca Advisors was intimately involved in corrupt in the Biden family business dealings. | ||
| And he visited Joe Biden's residence 36 times while he was vice president. | ||
| So in this email exchange, he actually says to her, will you call me when you get a chance? | ||
| I'm in the office or on my cell. | ||
| And 47 minutes later, this email. | ||
| That was seen on the screen was sent, and the email clearly was a coordination of talking points between the president's office and the business. | ||
| In fact, what really is striking is that this interaction occurred on the same day. | ||
| So the other thing that's really interesting to note is not only did they have an interaction, but in the email it says, the VP signed off on this. | ||
| The VP signed off on the shared communication. | ||
| The timeline of this is that this occurred on the very same day the Board of Burisma had requested Hunter to help alleviate pressure that it was facing from the prosecutor Shokin's investigation. | ||
| Let's turn to another email. | ||
| We have a staff member from Vice President Biden's office emailing Joe Biden about a scheduled call with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. | ||
| Not only was this email sent to, which I think found strange, to Robert L. Peters. | ||
| We all would think that that would be strange that Biden is using that alias. | ||
| But the more strange thing about this email is who is CC'd in the email. | ||
| Hunter Biden. | ||
| And not just his personal email, his business email account. | ||
| So you have, again, a staff person coordinating a meeting. | ||
| With the president and using those resources to coordinate that with Biden's business. | ||
| So if our president is believed to, whenever he says he was not involved in his son's business ventures, then why is his son copied on the email? | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I ask before I forget that these items, these emails be added to the record without objection to order. | ||
| What the American people need to be asking is the question, Why would the vice president coordinate with the business associate of Hunter Biden? | ||
| Why would he direct his staff to coordinate with the business associate of Hunter Biden? | ||
| And why does Hunter Biden need his father's approval to sign off on alleged separate business dealings? | ||
| And why would President Biden lie about his involvement within his family's international business dealings? | ||
| You know, the analogy that was made before about Hunter using his father's car to get a speeding ticket is an absurd analogy. | ||
| A more accurate one would be, Hunter, if Joe Biden threatened the job of the prosecutor or the officer who is issuing the speeding ticket to his son. | ||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| And our last question is Mr. Armstrong from North Dakota. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We spend all day long talking about evidence. | |
| Last one. | ||
| We made it. | ||
| We did it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And all of those different things. | |
| We did it. | ||
| Unconditional love for sons and addiction, all of these different issues. | ||
| But I think we missed one of the points in that this was going on for years. | ||
| And this was going on for years with various different companies during the course of Joe Biden's vice presidency, after his vice presidency, and at least during his candidacy for president. | ||
| I'm going to use one example out of many. | ||
| In 2015, Hunter Biden and James Barton started working with CEFC, which is a Chinese energy company with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| Now, there's evidence that they delayed payment until after Joe Biden was no longer vice president, so as to assume no appearance of impropriety. | ||
| 2017, after Joe Biden left office, Hunter wants to get paid by the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| And in July 4th of 2017, there is a meeting in Moscow between Vladimir Putin and President Xi, where the chairman of the CEFC, which is a Chinese energy party, was present. | ||
| And it's talking about a large-scale oil and gas purchase of a company called Rosnet by the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| Now, on July 30th of 2017, there's a text with Hunter Biden. | ||
| And the members of CEFC. | ||
| And that text reads, The people he's talking in, this guy disappeared. | ||
| He's either been killed or he has not been seen since 2018. | ||
| That is true. | ||
| August 3rd, there's another text. | ||
| And I'm tired of this, Kevin. | ||
| I can make $5 million in salary at any law firm in America. | ||
| If you think this is about money, it's not. | ||
| The Bidens are the best I know at doing exactly what the chairman wants from this partnership. | ||
| Please do not quibble over peanuts. | ||
| We've talked about influence meddling. | ||
| We've talked about all of this. | ||
| This is shakedown. | ||
| We can use whatever terms we want. | ||
| This is a threat. | ||
| And they believed it because the next day they sent $100,000. | ||
| You think they were scared of Hunter Biden? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I think we should find out. | ||
| And it matters, because on 9-17 of the same year, there is a deal done between the Chinese Communist Party and Russia for a 17% sale of Rosne. | ||
| And we continue to go through all of those things. | ||
| And now, finally, in December of 2018, over a year later, there's another text. | ||
| So we're not talking about a speeding ticket, Mr. Guerra. | ||
| We're just not. | ||
| You're right, Hallie, and I find myself, because I've chosen to alienate all of my friends and family and employees, and you and the kids and my kids, etc., very alone in dealing with rebuilding an income that support an enormous alimony and my kids and costs and myself, dealing with the aftermath of the abduction and likely assassination, that's what the New York Times suspects, of my business partner, the richest man in the world. | ||
| The arrest and conviction of my client, the chief of intelligence of the People's Republic of China by the U.S. government, the retaliation of the Chinese in the ouster and arrest of a U.S. suspected CIA operative inside China, my suspected involvement in brokering a deal with Vladimir Putin directly for the largest sale of oil and gas assets inside Russia to China, a tax bill that Eric left hanging over my head, and oh, by the way, my dad is running for president. | ||
| Mr. Turley, given the evidence we have, would the next step in this investigation be to subpoena Hunter Biden or James Biden's bank records? | ||
| Yes, in my testimony, I do warn the committee that once you proceed along the impeachment, the Constitution is on your side, but the calendar is not. | ||
| You have to quickly determine if this information is going to be withheld so that you can seek judicial review. | ||
| And that's one of the things that I encourage you to do so that you certainly don't, you should not tarry in an impeachment inquiry. | ||
| Ms. O 'Connor, you agree with that? | ||
| Completely. | ||
| I wish I could have said it as well. | ||
| Mr. Diplanski, you're a forensic accountant. | ||
| Would you like to see those bank records? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Here's the thing, and this is the bottom line. | ||
| If the Vice President Biden knew or helped or engaged in any conduct that in any way he knew his son was involved in that was helping move forward the interests of Russia and China are two strategic adversaries on the world stage the American people deserve to know. | ||
| If the former Vice President was doing the same thing or knew his son was doing it or helped in any meaningful way, the American people deserve to know. | ||
| And if the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in 2019 knew about any of those things, the American people deserve to know. | ||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| I'll now yield to Ranking Member Raskin for a brief closing statement. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Online, everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
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All right. | |
| One of this Seinfeld impeachment. | ||
| Seinfeld impeachment! | ||
| Apparently, two days before the government is about to shut down. | ||
| All right. | ||
| These witnesses have done a great service for us, not just the Republicans, but for the Democrats, too. | ||
| and I want to thank them for their patience, their intellectual honesty, and their surprising consensus on the key questions today. | ||
| This process might not be such a whipping post, Mr. Chairman, if we heard from actual fact witnesses, which is why I'm so dismayed by the party-line vote, not to call Rudy Giuliani or Lev Parnas to testify. | ||
| Now, if the majority Rat skin! | ||
| But if you're not abandoning that, we absolutely need to hear from them. | ||
| It's not the complete absence of fact witnesses that troubles us so much today. | ||
| It's the complete absence of facts. | ||
| When I started out as a young assistant attorney general, I went to court. | ||
| I remember my first day of work and I heard a judge lecture a lawyer by saying, counsel, you have forgotten the very first rule of being a lawyer, which is when you go to court. | ||
| Don't forget to bring the evidence with you. | ||
| And I'm afraid the majority forgot to bring the evidence with them today. | ||
| And our GOP colleagues are frustrated, and I know why. | ||
| Their own witnesses don't agree with them. | ||
| At least a dozen GOP members on that side of the aisle on the committee have already called for impeachment of Donald Trump. | ||
| And yet these three expert witnesses called by the majority have all agreed that there is not a sufficient quantum of evidence that would justify impeachment of President Biden. | ||
| I don't think you could find one who would say that there's a sufficient quantum of evidence. | ||
| Maybe John Eastman, but I think he may be detained these days. | ||
| The fact is that this Hearing has been dominated by the word if, as many people have said. | ||
| It's been filled with hypotheticals. | ||
| And I'm a law professor, so I'm not averse to them. | ||
| Imagine a world without hypotheticals. | ||
| But you don't impeach a president based on hypotheticals and based on obsolete conspiracy theories. | ||
| Finally, Mr. Chair, I just want to say we've talked a lot about... | ||
| You impeached Donald Trump based on a perfect focal. | ||
| Kind of elusively, indirectly. | ||
| We've talked about... | ||
| The beleaguered Burisma theory. | ||
| We talked about Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas and their travels there. | ||
| We talked about the Ukraine shakedown. | ||
| But while we were debating all of this and mentioning Ukraine, there was a very important debate going on in the House floor because the Republican majority in the House Rules Committee has advanced an amendment. | ||
| To delete $300 million from the Defense Appropriation Act, which will go to provide military and strategic security assistance to the people of Ukraine who are struggling to defend themselves against Vladimir Putin's invasion and imperialist attack on their national sovereignty and on the rule of law there. | ||
| That war has involved mass kidnapping of children. | ||
| And I would love to hear from some of our friends on the other side of the aisle with QAnon talk about the actual kidnapping of children that's taking place in Ukraine today. | ||
| Mass rape of women and girls. | ||
| Mass civilian atrocities. | ||
| Bombing of civilian residences, schools, hospitals, and so on. | ||
| And yet the pro-Trump Rat skin. | ||
| These people are trying to cut funding for our democratic allies in Ukraine. | ||
| And so the assault that began on Ukraine with with Donald Trump's Ukraine shakedown, holding up security and strategic assistance to them until he lied about Joe Biden. | ||
| That continues to this day. | ||
| In their efforts to cut off military and economic assistance to the people of Ukraine. | ||
| We will be fighting that. | ||
| Oh my God, yes, that's what this is all about. | ||
| And then the MAGA caucus won't have to vote for it. | ||
| But in any event, the question of Ukraine is a very serious one, and everybody who stands up for democracy, freedom, and the rule of law has got to be on the side of the people of Ukraine. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back to you. | ||
| One thing I didn't hear from my friends across the aisle in their never-ending defense of the Bidens is what exactly the Biden family did to receive the $20 million. | ||
| Not one thing. | ||
| Today's hearing battle is the basis for an impeachment inquiry of President Joseph R. Biden. | ||
| My Democrat colleagues have used this hearing to talk about impeachment, not an inquiry, but actual articles of impeachment. | ||
| We aren't talking about impeachment today, and they know that. | ||
| Unlike Democrats' investigations, this committee, under my leadership, does not launch investigations based on predetermined conclusions. | ||
| We have entered an impeachment inquiry because, as our witnesses have testified, the evidence justifies that. | ||
| This is how an investigation is supposed to work. | ||
| I know that some are confused about congressional investigations because Democrat investigations in the past have been about saying a conclusion first and cherry-picking evidence to fit that narrative. | ||
| The bottom line is that the committee has shown the Bidens alone have brought in over $15 million in their foreign influence peddling, over $24 million if you account for their associates' earnings from the schemes. | ||
| We have established in the first phase of this investigation where this money has come from. | ||
| Ukraine, Romania, Russia. | ||
| Kazakhstan, China. | ||
| It didn't come from selling anything legitimate. | ||
| It largely went unreported to the IRS. | ||
| It was funneled through shell companies and third parties to hide Biden's fingerprints. | ||
| This deserves investigation. | ||
| This deserves accountability. | ||
| The American people expect this committee to investigate public corruption. | ||
| And we know much of the money goes to Hunter Biden. | ||
| Haley Biden, James Biden, Sarah Biden, other Biden family members and their business entities. | ||
| What we need to understand is where it goes next. | ||
| That is the question this committee seeks to answer, and the evidence supports that next step. | ||
| Joe Biden showed up, met with, ate with, talked with, shook hands with, and had meetings with, including in the White House, the foreign individuals sending millions of dollars to his family who sold access to him. | ||
| This was no illusion of access. | ||
| They got access. | ||
| My Democrat colleagues wanted to spend this hearing defending the president against an impeachment that is not announced. | ||
| I do wonder if they have predetermined the president's level of participation in these schemes. | ||
| Two days ago, this committee revealed a wire for over a quarter million dollars was sent to Joe Biden's home address. | ||
| As of yesterday, we know Joe Biden was named on a search warrant that was quashed by a Department of Justice employee. | ||
| For my colleagues to say there is no evidence of Joe Biden's involvement. | ||
| It's not only wrong, but it fails to acknowledge that investigators have been shut down when attempting to explore avenues that led to the president. | ||
| That's what the Ways and Means Committee released yesterday. | ||
| The witnesses today have all identified the evidence the committee has uncovered as deserving further inquiry. | ||
| And that is what this committee will do. | ||
| No matter where that evidence leads. | ||
| I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony today. | ||
| It confirms the evidence compiled by this committee justifies the investigation of Joe Biden's role in his family's international business schemes and justifies the next step of this investigation. | ||
| One of those steps is gaining insight into where Biden's foreign money ended up. | ||
| For what purposes? | ||
| Therefore, today, I will subpoena the bank records of Hunter Biden, James Biden, And they're affiliated companies. | ||
| And I yield the remainder of our time to Chairman Jordan. | ||
| I thank the gentleman for yielding. | ||
| In his deposition, Hunter Biden's business partner was asked this fundamental question. | ||
| The request was held. | ||
| This is the request from Burisma. | ||
| The request was held from the United States government to deal with the pressure they were under from their prosecutor. | ||
| Mr. Archer's response, correct. | ||
| Later question. | ||
| A few minutes later. | ||
| What did Hunter Biden do after he was given this request? | ||
| Mr. Archer's response, he called his dad. | ||
| Someone pretty important in the United States government. | ||
| Which then begs the obvious question. | ||
| What did his dad do? | ||
| He gets a request from Burisma. | ||
| He called his dad. | ||
| What does his dad do? | ||
| Five days later, he gets on a plane, he flies to Ukraine, and he starts the process of firing that prosecutor. | ||
| That is why Mr. Turley said earlier that this is a confirmed, corrupt, influence-peddling effort. | ||
| He thinks that's what Joe Biden engaged in. | ||
| And oh, by the way, that all happened even though the Obama administration had just written the prosecutor general a few months earlier and said, we're impressed with the ambitious reform and anti-corruption agenda of your government. | ||
| Joe Biden decides to do it. | ||
| And you know what he did? | ||
| He decided on the plane. | ||
| He decided on the plane. | ||
| Read the Washington Post. | ||
| September 15th, on the plane, Joe Biden called an audible, quoted. | ||
| He called it, it was time for a bigger punch. | ||
| The loan guarantee was the main point of leverage, Professor Gerhardt. | ||
| He used the money of the people I represent in the 4th District of Ohio to help his family. | ||
| And anyone with a brain can see that. | ||
| That was the point of leverage, the vice president declared. | ||
| So instead, he would tell Poroshenko, the loan would not be forthcoming until Shokin was gone. | ||
| And guess what? | ||
| They didn't stop there. | ||
| They made sure the next prosecutor dropped the charges against the very guy who requested this all to happen in the first place, Solachevsky, the head of Burisma. | ||
| That is the case. | ||
| That is the case. | ||
| That's why the chairman wants the bank records. | ||
| That's why we're doing the impeachment inquiry. | ||
| It can't get plainer and simpler than that. | ||
| And it all happened. | ||
| It all happened in that five days. | ||
| He gets the request. | ||
| He calls his dad. | ||
| His dad calls the honorable, uses our money to leverage the change. | ||
| That's the place. | ||
| And again, I think anyone with common sense can see it. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman yields back as a housekeeping question from last week's markup on HR's 44-28. | ||
| All right, ladies and gentlemen. | ||
| All right, ladies and gentlemen. | ||
| Now they're just going to go to points of order. | ||
| And so that is now the conclusion. | ||
| Six hours! | ||
| Six hours and two minutes and 19 seconds to be exact this very second. | ||
| We told you we would bring you the entire hearing and we have brought you the entire hearing. | ||
| I tried as hard as I could not to talk over people. | ||
| I read the comments. | ||
| I see some people want to listen in and hear all of it. | ||
| I love adding a little bit of commentary, but I tried to shut my trap and listen along with you. | ||
| This is insanity. | ||
| We will cover so much of it on the show tomorrow. | ||
| We are clipping furiously. | ||
| Wow! | ||
| I just cannot believe what we just saw. | ||
| What a clown car. | ||
| My final takeaway is this. | ||
| My final takeaway is this. | ||
| Are Democrats, like, staffing this hearing with their most obnoxious members? | ||
| The single most annoying, repulsive, repugnant, degenerate, sassy, can't speak, literally can't speak English members to try and, I don't know, like, unmoor the hearing's reputability? | ||
| Bratz Doll. | ||
| A high school musical, too, performed by Bratz Dolls. | ||
| The line of questioning. | ||
| They didn't bring a single, like, heavy hitter, the Democrats. | ||
| What a joke. | ||
| What a clown car. | ||
| It does make the Democrat Party look like complete and total fools. | ||
| Who are you people sending to Congress? | ||
| Who are you sending to Congress? | ||
| Thank you so much for watching with us. | ||
| We have a lot to digest. | ||
| We've never been live for this long. | ||
| Again, six hours. | ||
| If you joined us and if you were able to stay with us the entire time, God bless you. | ||
| You are probably using Patriot Mobile. | ||
| Patriot Mobile is a cell phone service that we use. | ||
| Patriot Mobile keeps us connected no matter where we are in the world or no matter what we're doing. | ||
| It could be live for six hours. | ||
| Who knows? | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, Patreon Mobile will be there for us. | ||
| They're the only Christian conservative, free speech supporting, wireless network out there. | ||
| They're what we use to stay connected to you every single day. | ||
| We're even going to be doing live caller. | ||
| Wouldn't that be fun? | ||
| To be able to have live callers during the hearings? | ||
| Maybe in the breaks? | ||
| I'm not sure. | ||
| Ladies and gentlemen, we are so honored and thankful for your support. | ||
| And we thank you so much for watching. | ||
| If you're watching on a Patreon Mobile device... | ||
| Awesome. | ||
| Go to PatriotMobile.com today. | ||
| It's backslash Benny or call 878-PATRIOT. | ||
| Get free activation today when you use the offer code Benny. | ||
| We will see you tomorrow with a full recap of everything that we saw here. | ||
| Wild. | ||
| Wild stuff. | ||
| I think that the world has been sort of like, the world has sort of been broken here. | ||
| And you are starting to see the slow grind. | ||
| And what is going to turn this Democrat Party into power and what is going to turn whatever's left of Joe Biden's bones and teeth and hair into follicles, into powder as well. | ||
| We'll see, ladies and gentlemen, and we will stand upright, march forward, onward. | ||
| It's your boy Benny. |
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