# "House to start an impeachment inquiry into President Biden" **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 12, 2023, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995 "2023-09-12T16:17:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/281 "2023-09-26T22:14:59Z")
I didn’t mean to sting. Partly my fault. I did not open the image. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/282 "2023-09-29T12:58:05Z")
So, have any of you seen this video, of Jasmine Crockett eviscerating the GOP’s impeachment BS during the hearings? It is a thing of beauty. [https://www.reddit.com/r/blackpeoplegifs/comments/16uz13g/jasmine\_crockett/](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackpeoplegifs/comments/16uz13g/jasmine_crockett/) Is this the first time the phrase “…in the shitter” has been entered into an official Congressional record? ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/283 "2023-09-29T12:59:32Z")
She’s awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/284 "2023-09-29T13:02:21Z")
Dang. That is a great speech. I haven’t followed the testimony but secondary sources say that all the witnesses brought forward have basically said there’s no evidence to support the Republicans’ own claims. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/285 "2023-09-29T13:24:23Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Jasmine Crockett > [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > She’s awesome. > [@Gyrate](#): > > Dang. That is a great speech. Agree with all – but I wish she hadn’t gotten into Trump’s crimes. The lack of evidence presented by the GOP is damning enough without getting into whataboutism. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/286 "2023-09-29T13:58:02Z")
> [@Akaj](#): > > The lack of evidence presented by the GOP is damning enough without getting into whataboutism. Whataboutism can be a problem, but her point was not just about evidence, it was that they literally _couldn’t even define a crime_. We’ve asked over and over, “What is the crime?” and all we get back is vague suggestions of “He might be corrupt”, with no specifics. The contrast with Trump just highlights that. Ask, “What were Trump’s crimes?”, and you get specific actions, on specific dates, with specific witnesses, and specific documentation, all nicely typed up and submitted to the courts. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/287 "2023-09-29T16:10:06Z")
And the first day is done, and a couple of key Republican witnesses have testified. In damning statements about the President, they’ve said that … they don’t see any basis to proceed with impeachment. [Professor Turley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Turley), George Washington U., lawyer, constitutional scholar: > “This is a question of an impeachment inquiry. It is not a vote on articles of impeachment. In fact, **I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment.** That is something that inquiry has to establish.” Bruce Dubinsky, forensic accountant: > “ **I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption fraud or any wrongdoing**. In my opinion More information needs to be gathered and assessed before I would make such an assessment.” One trial adage is to lead with your strongest witnesses. If that’s the best the GOP can muster… > **[Key takeaways from House Republicans' 1st Biden impeachment inquiry hearing](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/key-takeaways-house-republicans-1st-biden-impeachment-inquiry/story?id=103575390)** > > House Republicans' first impeachment inquiry hearing was dominated by contentious moments between Republicans and Democrats but offered no new evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/288 "2023-09-29T16:13:10Z")
The Republicans are looking at a [possible subpoena of Hunter and Joe Biden’s bank records](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/comer-issue-subpoenas-today-hunter-biden-james-biden/story?id=103496028). ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/289 "2023-09-29T16:15:42Z")
If so, they’ll run into the DoJ opinion, issued during the Trump period, which stated that until a formal impeachment hearing is begun, the DoJ does not believe committee subpoenas have any legal force. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/290 "2023-09-29T16:16:59Z")
Sidebar: who are the people holding up the signs behind the committee members in the article I linked? They must be Democrats, given what’s on the signs, but how come they’re allowed to do that? ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/291 "2023-09-29T16:20:56Z")
They’re probably staffers. It seems the US Congress is generally okay with people bringing in such displays, there was that example of MTG bringing a picture of Hunter Biden’s penis a few weeks back. This just gets those quotes on TV and in the news every time there’s a picture like that. Hopefully it gets the message across to the MAGAts, without constantly interrupting. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/292 "2023-09-29T16:26:52Z")
Different strokes, I guess. Wouldn’t be allowed in our Parliament. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/293 "2023-09-29T17:09:10Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > there was that example of MTG bringing a picture of Hunter Biden’s penis a few weeks back. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Different strokes, I guess. Phrasing! ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/294 "2023-09-29T17:14:08Z")
Strokes is Boebert. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/295 "2023-09-29T17:14:32Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Wouldn’t be allowed in our Parliament. Considering how some Canadian politics has been copying the worst of the US lately, I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone try to pull this in the House sometime in the near future. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/296 "2023-09-29T17:15:28Z")
It’s contrary to the rules, and the Speaker in our system is an impartial enforcer of the rules. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/297 "2023-09-29T17:29:44Z")
Even Fox commentator Neil Cavuto isn’t impressed: > [@](#): > > The best they could say now after this six-plus hours of testimony back and forth is that they’re going to try to get more bank records from Joe Biden and his son. Said that they’re needed to determine if a crime was committed. Understood. But none of that was presented today, **just that they would need those records to further the investigation after months of Republican probes that failed to provide anything resembling concrete evidence**. > … > **But when you begin to trumpet what you have as the beginning of an explosive inquiry into the president of the United States to potentially remove him from office, you think you’d bring your A-game.** Maybe this is part of a pattern and a legal process of which I’m totally unfamiliar. Guilty as charged. But this took over six hours today, my friends. Over six hours. **I wonder**. [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/fox-s-cavuto-unimpressed-with-impeachment-inquiry-hearing-i-don-t-know-what-was-achieved-over-these-last-6-hours/ar-AA1hpYdh](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/fox-s-cavuto-unimpressed-with-impeachment-inquiry-hearing-i-don-t-know-what-was-achieved-over-these-last-6-hours/ar-AA1hpYdh) ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/298 "2023-09-29T17:41:12Z")
I assume they’re doing the same fishing expeditions that led to Monica Lewinski and Clinton’s private email server. One was started as an investigation into a real estate transaction and the other was started as an investigation into the events in Benghazi. What Bill C was impeached for had nothing at all to do with the original investigation. Same with what probably sunk Hilary C’s campaign. So, start this investigation and keep going and find out that Joe Biden, I don’t know, bought a race horse that ended having doping issues or something, and use that to batter him during the election. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/299 "2023-09-29T17:46:53Z")
The sad truth is that _this is their A-game_. They brought it, and what a sad and pathetic thing it has turned out to be. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995/300 "2023-09-29T17:52:30Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It’s suspicious when you set many of them up with no business case behind them and all they seem to be for is shuffling money to family members. Comer doesn’t seem to suggest that Joe Biden set up any of the shell companies: [https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-mountain-of-evidence-reveals-joe-biden-abused-his-public-office-for-his-familys-financial-gain/#:~:text=Since%20January%2C%20the%20Oversight%20Committee,business%20schemes%2C%20and%20confirmed%20that](https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-mountain-of-evidence-reveals-joe-biden-abused-his-public-office-for-his-familys-financial-gain%EF%BF%BC/#:~:text=Since%20January%2C%20the%20Oversight%20Committee,business%20schemes%2C%20and%20confirmed%20that) I’m all for convicting people who committed crimes but I’m less enthusiastic about convicting people because they had family members who committed crimes. And, with Trump, when people would show him shaking hands in front of a camera at an event and CNN would say, “Look, he’s shaking hands with Convicted Pedophile 37!” I’d not be impressed because his professional occupation includes a lot of going around, kissing babies, posing for a photo, etc. It’s not indicative of anything. Being in Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book and telling Howard Stern that he knew about Epstein’s activities are concerning. Sending George Nader out as a personal representative was concerning. Shaking hands with some guy at a fundraising event, I don’t care about. And, likewise for Biden, I don’t care if said “Hello” to a guy working with James Biden, who came to an event. I also believe in the 4th Amendment which (under modern interpretation) says that you need some reasonable basis for invading a person’s privacy, to uncover crimes. Someone performing a legal activity - creating a shell company - is insufficient to even get a warrant to investigate that person, let alone to convict them, and let alone to convict a person who shares some genes with them. I’ll also note that if we assume that these people, as members of a political family, are somewhat at risk of politically motivated violence then it would be pretty reasonable for all of them to have purchased their home through a shell company - to make it harder for crazies to look them up. If we’re looking at 20 shell companies over 9 people, that alone gives us about half of those shell companies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-to-start-an-impeachment-inquiry-into-president-biden/989995.md?page=16)