Representative Jamie Raskin absolutely destroyed the Republican effort to impeach Joe Biden on Wednesday, describing the somehow still ongoing inquiry as “the most spectacular failure in the history of congressional investigations.”
The House Oversight Committee is hearing testimony Wednesday from Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden’s onetime work partner with a history of shady business dealings, and Jason Galanis, who is testifying via video call from a federal prison where he is serving a 14-year sentence for financial fraud. Republicans claim both men can prove the Biden family is guilty of corruption, despite the fact that Hunter says he and Galanis only met once.
“With any luck, today marks the end of perhaps the most spectacular failure in the history of congressional investigations: the effort to find a high crime or misdemeanor committed by Joe Biden and then to impeach him for it,” Raskin, the ranking Oversight member, said in his opening statement. As he spoke, one of his aides held up a poster with quotes from the right-wing outlets Fox News and the Washington Examiner acknowledging that the impeachment investigation has turned up no proof.
Raskin described some of the “hilarious episodes” in Republicans’ “long-running madcap series,” including almost all of the GOP’s supposed “star” witnesses stating that the president had not been involved in his family’s business dealings. Lawmakers also combed through tens of thousands of pages of financial documents but were unable to find proof of Biden’s wrongdoing.
Over the course of the investigation, Raskin noted, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene waved Hunter Biden’s nude photos around during a hearing (and may have emailed them to minors). One of the GOP’s primary witnesses, Gal Luft, has been charged with acting as a foreign agent for China and as an arms dealer. And Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant who accused the Biden’s of accepting bribes, jump-starting the entire investigation, is currently imprisoned in California for fabricating the entire allegation. Smirnov has even admitted that he was fed the story by a Russian intelligence officer.
“The comedy of errors comes crashing to an end, as House Republicans in more than a dozen Biden districts beg for mercy and the Committee throws a flabby Hail Mary pass three weeks after the Super Bowl is over,” Raskin said.
Raskin absolutely demolishes the entire Republican impeachment push in just over 2 minutes pic.twitter.com/zTkD5JmmHU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 20, 2024
Although Oversight Chair James Comer and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, who have spearheaded the charge against Biden, remain gung-ho about the investigation, other Republicans have begun to sour on it. In fact, Representative Ken Buck, the one Republican willing to openly oppose the impeachment inquiry, will leave Congress at the end of this week in large part because of the investigation.
“We’ve taken impeachment and we’ve made it a social media issue as opposed to a constitutional concept,” Buck said last week when he announced his retirement. “This place just keeps going downhill, and I don’t need to spend my time here.”