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SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE  |  SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

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The Impeachment Inquiry Begins

The House Oversight Committee on Thursday staged its first not-quite-yet-an-impeachment inquiry hearing into President Joe Biden, two weeks after House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) gave his blessing to initiate the proceeding as a concession to conservatives to advance blocked appropriations bills. 

The combative, contentious six-hour hearing essentially boiled down to how much President Biden knew—and when he knew it—about his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China, which Republicans say was a lucrative “influence peddling” scheme he helped orchestrate.

The core claim: As Vice President, Mr. Biden allegedly received a $5 million bribe to derail a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into Ukrainian company Burisma, where Hunter Biden was a board member. 

Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said the hearing was to ascertain if there was “a basis” to open an inquiry into evidence to support a formal impeachment inquiry.

It wasn’t an impeachment hearing, he said, but a hearing to vet possible evidence that could possibly trigger impeachment procedures.

GOP House leaders insist the DOJ ignored evidence linking Hunter Biden to criminal activity his father was aware of, pointing to two 2019 wire payments from a Beijing bank totaling more than $250,000 that had Joe Biden’s Delaware home as the unnamed recipient’s address while running for president.

The committee wants to vet these documents, which it had to subpoena without DOJ cooperation, and others from assorted sources as a precursor to launching an impeachment probe.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (R-Md.), a constitutional law professor and lead impeachment manager for President Donald Trump’s second impeachment in 2019–20, said the hearing violates parliamentary protocols that require a floor vote before beginning investigatory activities leading to an impeachment inquiry.

The panel set aside two Democrat motions—motions to table motions—in narrow partisan votes. So narrow that Mr. Comer extended the first vote to allow Republicans to circulate into the hearing from budget caucusing underway in warrens and nooks across Capitol Hill.

The delay secured a 20-19 tabling of Mr. Raskin’s motion. A motion to subpoena former New York Mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani and associate Lev Parnas was also tabled in a partisan vote.

There was no vote on whether to proceed further, meaning the panel will proceed further. 

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Mr. Cole said he’d subpoena the president’s and Hunter Biden’s bank records, concluding before adjourning, “The evidence supports that next step.”

This will likely be a pacing narrative in the 2024 presidential campaign, especially if it pits an incumbent in an impeachment inquiry against a twice-impeached former president.

Of course, The Epoch Times has been investigating Biden-Burisma since 2018. 

And, of course, The Epoch Times was all over Thursday’s proceedings with details, details, details, and what it all means through reports by Zachary Steiber and Jackson Richman, as well as on-the-ground coverage by Joseph Lord, Ryusuke Abe, and Mark Tapscott. Petr Svab and Catherine Yang provided analyses.

Ms. Yang, for instance, reported on how IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Zeigler claim James Biden told the FBI he presented Chinese investors with a deal to develop a port in Louisiana when he was interviewed as part of an investigation last year. 

Mr. Steiber wrote about how a tranche of materials, including an August 2020 email from Lesley Wolf, a DOJ attorney overseeing the investigation, telling investigators about the redraft of a search warrant to remove mention of "political figure 1,” a reference to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden. Mr. Stieber had previously reported that two federal prosecutors appointed by President Biden declined attempts to bring charges against the president's son.

"It's about a two-tiered system of justice. If Joe Biden's name had been Smith or Jones or Johnson, he would not have been excluded from this search warrant. But he was,” House Ways and Means Committee Chair Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said.

Mr. Lord has tailed Attorney General Merrick Garland through the process, including his appearance before the House Judicial Committee in which he couldn’t recall discussing Hunter Biden’s case with the FBI.

Mr. Tapscott, The Epoch Times’ unofficial dean of Congressional reporters, has been steady on the beat, not only filing articles related to the Biden Hunter case but offering updates and commentary on EpochTV.

In an article by Mr. Richman, we learn, after the Sept. 28 testimony before the House Oversight Committee, why Chair Comer “will subpoena the bank records of Hunter Biden, James Biden, and their affiliated companies” in the coming weeks … and that this affair is far from over.

In fact, it has just begun.

And The Epoch Times will be there every step of the way.

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