House Holds First Impeachment Inquiry Hearing on Biden
President Joe Biden’s first impeachment inquiry hearing happened today as the House Oversight Committee investigated the President’s alleged bribery scandals involving his son Hunter Biden, Ukraine, and China.
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives held its first hearing on Thursday in its impeachment inquiry against Democratic President Joe Biden, less than three days before the government will partially shut down without congressional action. . . .
As the hearing got underway, Republicans leading the probe alleged that Joe Biden had lied about family members’ overseas business dealings and had not taken steps to wall them off from his official duties when he served as vice president between 2009 and 2017.
Here’s the big question: Is there enough concrete evidence for this impeachment inquiry? As we know, the two impeachments of President Trump cheapened the gravity of presidential impeachments. Of course, the irony was palpable as some of the very same Members of Congress who rushed to impeach President Trump are now complaining that impeachment is being politicized. They are the ones who politicized it.
An impeachment is a sober recognition that a federal official has been found guilty of treason, bribery, or “other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Impeachment proceedings shouldn’t be a political move to remove political opposition.
Of course, my dad, ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, and I defended President Trump during one of his impeachment trials. If anyone knows firsthand the severity of impeachment proceedings, we do.
The Republicans should have concrete evidence of criminal activity by President Biden before moving forward. We’ll closely monitor what develops from this impeachment inquiry hearing for President Joe Biden.
Last night, the GOP presidential debate, hosted by Fox Business Network and Univision, featured former Gov. Chris Christie, former Gov. Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott, former VP Mike Pence, and Gov. Doug Burgum as they all made their case to be the Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election. Of course, one candidate was notably absent: former President Donald Trump.
Honestly, the first hour of the debate was tough to watch. The candidates talked over each other too much, not allowing anyone to communicate their message. My brother, Logan, even pointed out that his 11-year-old son couldn’t stand what was happening – and he’s used to watching screaming YouTubers battle each other on Fortnite.
In a moment of levity, debate host Dana Perino reminded the candidates that even though Trump maintains a sizable lead in the polls to be the GOP nominee, none of them plans to drop out of the race. So she requested that everyone write down the name of a candidate on the stage who “should be voted off the island.” The nominees all refused to write down a name out of respect for each other, yet Christie revealed that he’d vote for Donald Trump to be kicked off the island due to his absence.
No stranger to debates herself, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard joined our broadcast to speak about the difficulty of the debate format in allowing candidates to connect with viewers.
The format is not constructive to meet what should be the objective of a presidential debate or conversation, which is: Are the American people going to walk away knowing more about what each of these candidates is going to do to solve the great challenges that we face in this country, both here at home as well as with our foreign policy? It was clear to me last night – as I experienced in the presidential debates that I participated in the Democratic primary in 2020 – that voters are not getting that information. The format is not for that. It’s really all about political theater. And I think that was kind of clear last night, as well as how do you create a situation where people are fighting with each other? You've got these gotcha questions or gotcha accusations or whatever, and it’s just not focused on the substance.
At the end of the day, how helpful are these debates? For example, everyone on stage last night should obviously be in favor of securing the southern border, so why do we need to watch people argue about the topic for an extended period?
Also, we are seeing a declining participation of candidates in debates as well as viewership. Could we possibly see zero debates between the GOP and Democrat presidential nominees during the 2024 election?
Today’s Sekulow broadcast analyzed the impeachment inquiry into President Biden and last night’s Republican debate.
Watch the full broadcast below: