When House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested that mounting questions concerning the fishy financial history of President Biden and his family may lead to an impeachment inquiry, some Republicans got the vapors. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), for example, said it would send the “wrong message.” Reps. David Joyce (R-Ohio) and Tom Cole (R-Okla.) voiced similarly craven qualms. An inquiry may well uncover evidence supporting claims made in an FBI document, recently released by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), that Biden accepted bribes while Vice President. If so, it is the duty of House Republicans to impeach him.
Every member of Congress takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution, as does the President. This obligates the former to act when the latter flouts the nation’s founding document. The framers constrained the exercise of presidential power by creating two additional coequal branches of the government — Congress and the Judiciary. Biden routinely ignores pesky laws passed by the former and publicly excoriates the latter when rulings displease him. The primary constitutional mechanism available to Congress for controlling a lawless president is impeachment. If the House refuses to use that tool, it is equally guilty of flouting the Constitution. As Jonathan Turley told Fox News on Friday:
We often talk about the powers of Congress and not its obligations … You have a trusted source saying that there was a bribery allegation. The crime that is the second one mentioned in the impeachment clause. So what are you supposed to do about that? And the answer is you have to investigate. And an impeachment inquiry gives the House that ability. It doesn’t mean they’re going to impeach. It means they’re taking the responsibility seriously no matter what the administration may want. The one thing the House cannot allow is for these questions to go unanswered.
Yet prominent Republicans are urging the House to do just that. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, for example, argued on ABC’s “This Week” that an impeachment inquiry should be delayed until the Department of Justice (DOJ) wraps up its Hunter Biden investigations: “We have to find out what all the evidence is.” Sununu has it exactly backwards. The whole purpose of a formal impeachment inquiry would be to empower the House Judiciary Committee to force the DOJ to stop sitting on documentary evidence that may well prove the President’s complicity in his son’s shady business deals. The need for this additional leverage was highlighted by FBI foot-dragging on the FD-1023 form that Sen. Grassley released on July 20. (READ MORE: Bribery Probe May Sink Biden Reelection Bid)
Any doubt that the DOJ is in full cover-up mode will be allayed by its attempt to jail Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, two days before his scheduled testimony before Congress. Archer’s testimony is expected to debunk President Biden’s claims that he and Hunter never discussed the latter’s foreign business deals and certainly wasn’t in business with him. According to a report by the New York Post’s Miranda Devine, Archer was present at meetings with Hunter’s foreign partners “attended by Joe Biden either in person or via speakerphone.” Saturday, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York issued a letter that included the following request of a judge involved in an unrelated case:
[T]he Government respectfully requests that the defendant be ordered to surrender, at a date and time determined by the Court, to a facility designated by the Bureau of Prisons to commence his term of imprisonment. The Government has conferred with counsel for the defendant about this request and asked that counsel propose a date for the defendant’s surrender. Counsel responded with the following position: “Mr. Archer believes it is premature to set a report date in light of his anticipated continuing appeal as well as the newly discovered sentencing error …”
It’s difficult to believe that the timing of this letter was coincidental, considering the explosive testimony that Archer is expected to provide the House Oversight Committee on Monday. At the very least it was an attempt to intimidate him. That was confirmed Sunday Morning by Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who joined Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” to discuss the investigation and the influence of Archer’s testimony: “He has an opportunity to be a hero … I know it’s tough. I know he’s been intimidated by the Biden legal team, but hopefully he saw what happened in that courtroom in Delaware last week. And there are good people in the justice system.”
Any doubt that the DOJ is in full cover-up mode will be allayed by its attempt to jail Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, two days before his scheduled testimony before Congress.
His mention of Delaware is, of course, a reference to the collapse of Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal, which the White House expected to indemnify the President against further questions about his dodgy foreign deals during his tenure as Vice President. The White House and congressional Democrats have mocked Republicans for discussing an impeachment inquiry, but they are obviously worried about Archer’s testimony. Indeed, according to a report in the Daily Mail his family has received numerous threats and he is, for all intents and purposes, in hiding until Monday. This doesn’t exactly suggest insouciance on the part of the Biden administration. Chairman Comer pointed out why they’re sweating:
Devon Archer could be in that category of Americans that just come and tell the truth. That’s all we want. We know that Devon Archer was on the board of Burisma with Hunter Biden. We know that Devon Archer has met and communicated many, many times with Joe Biden about Burisma and other things. So this is going to be an opportunity for Devon Archer, just to tell the truth. We have other bank statements that we’ve obtained that we have questions about pertaining to countries that we believe Archer may have knowledge of.
On Monday, the substance of Archer’s testimony will likely be influenced by the perfidy with which he was treated by his “friend,” Hunter Biden and the latter’s father. The separate case discussed above was brought by the Obama DOJ during the last year of Joe Biden’s tenure as Vice President. Archer thought he was a valued member of Biden, Inc. He met with Vice President Biden in the White House and was photographed with his “friends” on a now famous golf outing. As the Washington Times reports, Archer reached out to Hunter when he found himself sideways with the DOJ: “Why did your dad’s administration appointees arrest me and try to put me in jail? Just curious. Some of our partners are asking out here.” (READ MORE: Will the Media Ever Acknowledge the Biden Family Bribery Scandal?)
Poor Devon didn’t realize that he had long since been kicked to the curb. He had become a liability to the Bidens. If you want to know what happens to inconvenient people in the orbit of the Biden family, ask 4-year-old Navy Joan Roberts. Archer’s testimony in Monday’s hearing is not likely to be characterized by over weaning loyalty to the patriarch of the Biden clan. Republican cowardice notwithstanding, Devon Archer possesses information that may get Good Ol’ Joe from Scranton impeached. He has certainly earned it.
