Chasing Biden impeachment is a waste of time

President Joe Biden (D), during a joint press conference last Thursday with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, denied accepting bribes while he was Vice-President under former President Barack Obama (D). Biden said, “Where’s the money. I’m joking. It’s a bunch of malarkey.” Thereafter, Mr. Biden declared himself to be an honest man.

I admit that Mr. Biden’s comment caused me to have flashbacks to November 17, 1973 when disgraced President Richard M. Nixon (R) in the midst of the Watergate scandal said: “. . . people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.” In an oblique way it also reminded me of former Sen. Gary Hart (D-CO) who, during his presidential primary run, responded to questions about extramarital affairs by denying it and said, “Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’ll be very bored.” And so they did and confirmed his affair with Donna Rice. Or former Sen. John Edwards (D-SC) who, during his presidential primary run denied allegations of an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter by saying, “I’ve been in love with the same woman [his wife] for 30-plus years, and as anybody who’s been around us knows, she’s an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story’s just false.” Thereafter he was forced to admit the long running affair as well as the birth of his child with Ms. Hunter that occurred during his wife’s battle with terminal cancer – what a man.

Be that as it may, Mr. Biden’s denials also smack of a legalism known as a “negative pregnant” – which according to the Legal Information Institute of Cornell University is:

A negative pregnant is the denial of some part of an allegation such that the denial is “pregnant” with the possibility that the allegation as a whole may still be true, except for that detail. For instance one could say that he did not have sex with that woman in the Oval Office because in fact, he had sex with her in the study adjacent to the Oval Office. So, when Mr. Biden says, as a part of his denial, “Where’s the money” he’s saying that he – Mr. Biden – didn’t physically receive any money and thus deny the accusation of accepting bribes. The web of accounts, limited liability corporations, wire transfers and other exchanges engaged by at least nine members of the Biden family make it virtually impossible to demonstrate that someone handed Mr. Biden money. That doesn’t mean that a bribe did not take place, it only means that you can’t establish the physical transfer of money to Mr. Biden himself.

And then there is the 2016 United States Supreme Court ruling in the public corruption case of former Virginia Gov. Robert McConnell that in essence held that mere interference by a public official on behalf of someone from whom they have accepted gratuities in insufficient to establish bribery. As the New York Post stated:

“A unanimous Supreme Court on Monday overturned the corruption conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in a ruling that makes it harder to prosecute elected officials accused of bribery.

“The justices ruled the jury received faulty instructions about what constitutes bribery under federal law.

“McDonnell was convicted in 2014 of accepting more than $165,000 in gifts and loans from a wealthy businessman in exchange for promoting a dietary supplement.

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“A jury in 2014 found McDonnell guilty of breaking a law that bars public officials from taking gifts in exchange for ‘official action.’ He was sentenced to two years in prison, but remained free while the high court considered his appeal.

“There is no dispute that McConnell received multiple payments and gifts from Williams, which was not illegal at the time under Virginia ethics laws. But McDonnell said he did nothing in return except help a constituent reach out and make his pitch to other public officials.

“Chief Justice John Roberts said the law can’t punish politicians for giving their constituents access to public officials who are willing to listen, but don’t actually exercise government power. He said setting up a meeting, talking to another official or organizing an event does not meet the definition of an official act under the law.”

The article goes on to detail the numerous meetings, introductions and supporting messages about Star Scientific’s products that Mr. McConnell undertook – all of which could be said to signal the agencies under his direction that he was in support of the company and its products – but noted that there was no evidence of a specific order given by the governor to any agency.

The effect of this ruling is that with regard to Mr. Biden, there not only has to be proof that Mr. Biden accepted payments, but that he took specific actions to benefit those who provided the bribe. That is why you have heard Mr. Biden not only ask “where’s the money” but to demand that those making the allegations detail the specific “favor” done for those alleged to have provided the bribe. This has been referred to as the quid pro quo doctrine. That is a high mountain to climb.

So let us assume that Mr. Biden took $10 Million dollars for corporations and individuals controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Let us further assume that the payments were made through a series of LLCs , wire transfers, foreign bank accounts and other actions benefiting Mr. Biden’s family but without proof that Mr. Biden himself accepted the money or that it was placed in a joint account to which he has or had access. Because that basically is where the evidence gathered to date demonstrates.

Is Mr. Biden guilty of public corruption and/or bribery? Probably, but given the limitations noted above there is insufficient evidence to convict him of a crime.

Is Mr. Biden guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” as required by the United States Constitutions as a basis of impeaching and convicting him? Probably, but impeachment proceedings differ from criminal proceeding in that they are more political than factual. In this instance with the Republicans having a majority in the House of Representatives, they could impeach Mr. Biden, much like the Democrat House under former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) impeached former President Donald Trump. However, the Democrats control the Senate and it would be virtually impossible to obtain a two-thirds majority for conviction given the highly partisan nature of both bodies. (Add to that the certainty that should Mr. Biden be convicted, Vice-president Kalamata Harris would automatically become president – a bridge too far for most.)

Gone are the days of the Watergate proceeding and the impeachment of former President Richard Nixon (R) where the focus was on the crimes of Mr. Nixon rather than on the political effects of the next election – now the only standard for everything in Washington today. The point here is that all of this sound and fury is just that – sound and fury. You are not going to indict or convict Mr. Biden, even if he fails to win the next presidential election. That is not unless the Department of Justice can turn a Biden family member to testify concerning the whole tangled weave of funds arriving from foreign states and being distributed the network established by the Bidens – and the Department of Justice under Attorney General Merrick Garland won’t even try. There may be an indictment of Hunter Biden but it will be for something other than conspiracy to commit a crime involving the President – and even at that Mr. Biden will almost surely pardon his son before he is required to serve any time. Mr. Biden knows he is safe and he is laughing at the efforts of the Republicans.

Quite frankly as much as I find Mr. Biden to be a contemptible phony, as much as I would like to see him do the “perp walk” down the White House steps, and even as I protest the damage he has done to America including fertilizing the seeds of division, I do not think it would be good for America to imprison a former President. So if you cannot and should not imprison a former President, and you cannot impeach him given the gross politicization of the Congress, what can you do?

Well, there are still elections in America. There are still opportunities for the people to register their disgust with politicians. And for Mr. Biden, that election is in November of 2024. So here is the problem.

You have a Justice Department which is doing its level best to ensure that allegations concerning Mr. Biden and his family are buried under a mountain of objections regarding “national security”, “sources and methods” and the routine redaction of any materials the Federal Bureau of Investigation which may prove embarrassing to the Bureau and/or its employees. And while the Republican controlled House of Representatives has the power to subpoena testimony, documents and other evidence they must rely on the Justice Department to enforce compliance with those subpoenas which thus far it has refused to – particularly if the requested evidence is currently in the hands of the Department of Justice or the FBI. But the Congress – particularly the House of Representatives – is not without a remedy. It can, and it should, begin to deny funding to the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation until there is compliance with subpoenas and requested evidence.

The point here is that instead of trying to impeach and remove Mr. Biden, or to force the prosecution and imprisonment of his son, the object should be to force the public disclosure of all of the documents, testimony and other evidence that can be found. It is what Senator Charles Grassely (R-IA) threatened with regard to the FD-1023 document that is alleged to have proved Mr. Biden had accepted bribes. But the Republicans backed away from it in exchange for allowing members of two committees to view the documents – only to find out that the Justice Department had redacted a critical portion of the document relating to the existence of recordings of conversations between Mr. Biden, his son, and the officials of Burisma.

The importance of the release of these documents to the public is that it is the public – not the Justice Department, not the FBI and not the Congress – who should decide the next presidential election and they cannot do that unless they can see the evidence and debate what it shows.* Thus far we are left to the worthless conundrum of the Republicans who have read them claiming they show Mr. Biden’s complicity and the Democrats who have seen them saying nothing in them indicates Mr. Biden’s involvement remotely suggesting bribery.

But until the Republicans grow a pair and begin to withhold funding to enforce their requests for information – information that they pledge to share with the public – nothing is going to change in a corrupt federal government.

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I feel exactly the same with regard to the “evidence” against Former President Donald Trump – show it all with no redcations. We saw what happened when only members of Congress were allowed to see documents – they simply made up conclusion which were not sustained by the documents they reviewed.