Earlier this month, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced Republicans would be launching an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over his alleged involvement in First Son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.
According to McCarthy, House Republicans had “uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct” – including “abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption” – that will serve as the basis of an impeachment inquiry. On Thursday, the first hearing was held as the GOP sought to further outline the factual and legal ground.
On Friday’s show, Megyn was joined by Margot Cleveland, senior legal correspondent at The Federalist, to break down the hearing, the state of the impeachment inquiry, and why the Democrats seem to be in “denial.”
The Hearing
During the six-hour hearing on Capitol Hill, Republicans did not present any new evidence or call witnesses who could speak directly to the foreign business affairs at the heart of the matter. Instead, the Republican chairs of the House Oversight, House Judiciary, and House Ways and Means Committees presented an overview of the legal and factual basis of the impeachment inquiry into President Biden and elaborated on their justification for it.
Republican-led House committees have been investigating the president and his son for months and have found evidence of corruption. “The Biden family sold access to Joe Biden’s power, and the Biden Justice Department protected the Biden brand,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) said during the hearing. “We must continue to follow the facts.”
It remains unclear whether then-Vice President Biden’s behavior rose to the level of an impeachable offense. Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, served as witness for the GOP majority and said he doesn’t see enough evidence at this point in time to justify articles of impeachment. “I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment,” he said. “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.”
Republicans maintain that building a case is precisely the purpose of an impeachment inquiry, though House Democrats do not see it that way. “All we heard from the Democrats all day was ‘there’s no evidence,” Megyn noted. “They were completely ignoring the fact that [Chairman James] Comer stated openly the purpose of yesterday was just to begin to set the stage for why the inquiry was necessary. There was not even an attempt by the Republicans to begin the fact presentation and finding process.”
The Evidence
Despite the Democrats’ best efforts to undermine it, Cleveland believes the “documentary evidence” the House GOP has collected so far is credible. “The Democrats wrote off as, ‘Oh, this is from Rudy Giuliani, so we can’t trust it,’” she said. “This wasn’t from Rudy Giuliani. This was from bank records, this was from the confidential human source… so there is a lot of evidence.”
And it is because of that every-growing body of evidence that the Republicans believe an impeachment inquiry is needed. “[The GOP was saying] this is why we need the inquiry because we have so much evidence of the corruption and quite a bit of circumstantial evidence tying President Joe Biden to the corruption whether it’s him benefiting or changing policy,” Cleveland explained. “The Democrats’ response was, ‘Oh, there’s no evidence. This should be shut down.’”
Megyn noted that Congress now believes the Biden family and associates banked up to $24 million “pushing Joe Biden’s name.” As part of his remarks, Turley noted that influence peddling is among the most popular forms of corruption in Washington, DC, and yet he has never seen “anything of this size and complexity” before.
What Comes Next
At the conclusion of the hearing, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced he would subpoena the bank records of Hunter and President Biden’s brother, Jim Biden. Cleveland said that is an important first step. “We need to see where this money went,” she said. “We know what was going through all of these different corporations that were set up, but we don’t know everywhere that it went.”
Additionally, she expects to see more communications subpoenaed. “There was a dump of documents early in the week that went through and detailed what [the IRS whistleblowers] found as part of the investigation, but it’s really important to remember that the investigation did not get into President Biden at all,” Cleveland explained.
As you may recall, the whistleblowers have said they weren’t allowed to ask many of the questions or follow many of the leads they had that dealt with the president. “Another thing that whistleblowers noted was that when they did searches of the computer, they did not use Joe Biden’s aliases, so they weren’t able to get any of that type of information,” Cleveland added.
That is why she believes there is more to be explored on that front. “I would expect more subpoenas to go out for email accounts and texts accounts that are coming from third parties… to look at those aliases and to look at those text messages to see what Joe Biden was doing and what kind of communications he was having,” she concluded.
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Cleveland by tuning in to episode 638 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.