(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Democrats tried to derail Thursday’s congressional impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden before it even began, claiming that it “threatens the wellbeing of every American” with a potential federal government shutdown looming.
“We’re 62 hours away from shutting down the government of the United States of America and Republicans are launching an impeachment drive, based on a long debunked and discredited lie,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, said at the outset of the hearing.
Raskin questioned the legitimacy of the hearing, accusing Republicans of rehashing five-year-old allegations from Donald Trump.
Raskin then floated his own conspiracy theory that Trump is the one pulling the strings of the impeachment procedures.
“To delay prosecution, Trump would withhold paychecks for millions of [government] workers,” Raskin said.
In an attempt to derail the proceedings, Raskin motioned to subpoena Rudy Guliani and his former business associate, Lev Parnas, who worked to dig up dirt on Biden in the runup to the 2020 election. Parnas, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison for campaign finance crimes last year after pleading guilty to wire fraud charges, has since disavowed the Biden corruption allegations.
Raskin claimed Guliani and Parnas are “key figures” in the Biden impeachment proceedings.
“Key figures for what?” an incredulous House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., asked, explaining to Raskin that the purpose of the hearing was to examine evidence of whether Biden should be impeached.
The committee eventually voted to table Raskin’s motion.
Thursday’s hearing didn’t feature witnesses with information about the Bidens or Hunter Biden’s business work. Instead, the panel heard from outside experts in tax law, criminal investigations and constitutional legal theory.
A top Republican witness, Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who is an expert in impeachment issues, said he believed the House had passed the threshold for an inquiry but that the current evidence was not enough for charges.
Democrats, who decry the investigation as a political ploy aimed at hurting Biden and helping Trump as he runs again for president, brought in Michael Gerhardt, a law professor who has also appeared as an expert in previous impeachment proceedings.
In detailing the reasons Republicans say they have to impeach Biden, Gerhardt concluded: “If that’s what exists, as a basis for this inquiry, it is not sufficient. I say that with all respect.”
While Democrats have floated the conspiracy that Trump is pushing the impeachment for his own selfish reasons, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has his own theory. According to Gaetz, Speaker Kevin McCarthy organized the hearing to blunt the criticism against him for how he’s caving to Democrats’ demands on federal spending.
“I don’t believe we’re endeavoring upon a legitimate impeachment of Joe Biden,” Gaetz told political kingmaker Steve Bannon on Tuesday.
“Kevin McCarthy didn’t even have enough votes to launch an impeachment inquiry, and you’re telling me he’s somehow going to get the votes for impeachment? I think McCarthy is using the specter of impeachment to subjugate the threat to his power as an impeachment impediment,” he said.
“The game you’re watching is not really the game being played,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
