America's Talking - House Schedules First Biden Impeachment Inquiry Hearing

Episode Date: September 24, 2023

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee announced its first impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is scheduled for Sept. 28, next Thursday. The impeachment inquiry committee will have power to subpoena records and communications to dig up evidence and will likely be a thorn in Biden’s side heading into the 2024 election year. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus. Powered by the Center Square. I am Dan McAulip, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. How are things? Casey? Things are good, Dan. It's an honor to be on here. As always, I just want you to know that you're my favorite boss. You're my favorite direct reporter.

I don't know how to take that Casey. Maybe I'm being too easy on you. Is that possible? Oh, no. It's more just like Stockholm syndrome. Anyway, we'll talk about that later, Casey. We are recording this on Friday, September 22nd. Casey, for the second presidency in a row, Congress is launching impeachment proceedings into a sitting president. Of course, President Donald Trump went through, former President Donald Trump went through a couple and, in fact, was impeached twice, only to be acquitted in the Senate.

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee announced it is launching its first impeachment, inquiry into President Joe Biden, and the first hearing is scheduled for next week, September 28th. Bring our listeners up to speed on what's going on here. Yeah, that's right. House Oversight is taking the lead on this hearing. Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican Speaker, announced this impeachment inquiry earlier this month to a lot of controversy, but he said, hey, guys, hey, this is not an impeachment.

This is an impeachment inquiry, all right? We're finding facts here, Dan. We're not making a ruling. We've got to find the facts. And so that's the tact that Republican leadership is taking on this. Now, from Biden's side, this Hunter Biden stuff, which is what this hearing is all about, this impeachment inquiry is all about right, is the never-ending thorn in his side where he's continually answering about this. This impeachment inquiry could very, very easily go well into the next election year. And it really provides a little bit of political smoke screen and cover for former President Donald Trump, who's facing his own legal charges because I think in the

American mind, it's like, well, Biden's being impeached over son. Trump's being charged for the election. They're both just have their legal laws. And it's kind of a wash, which is the last thing that Democrats want Trump to be on the verge of jail, a crook and Biden to be just kind of a nice, like, moderate president. But this impeachment inquiry and really the mounting evidence has been a never ignored in Biden administration's side. And so this inquiry will be really interesting to see what kind of tact they take in this hearing, how they're leading it out, how they're messaging it, because so much of this is going to be messaging because a lot of the mainstream and liberal media has said, Republicans don't have any evidence on this. We've talked about this. Republicans have no

evidence, and this is totally political. And so they've got to make the case for, on the Republican side, they have to make the case to show that there is evidence and grounds for this. And this isn't just a political witch hunt. And so, you know, we'll see if they're successful on that. We've talked a little bit about the evidence they do have on this podcast. I mean, over 150 suspicious activity reports from the Treasury Department over a lot of the transactions that were made. We know from bank records that were released by the House Oversight Committee that there is about 20 shell companies that receive about $20 million in payments from several overseas entities, even in adversarial nations, places like China. And so we know that that

money came into the Biden family and the Biden associates. So there's other things about where also the this question of if President Biden knew about it and if he was involved, Devin Archer, a longtime business associate of Hunter Biden, the president's son, testifies that the president, or at the two at the time was vice president Joe Biden would call and do these speaker phone calls. I think he said about 20 times they did these calls. And with Hunter Biden's associates were kind of in the room and it was a speakerphone situation, potentially adding credibility and a sense that the then vice president was in on it with Hunter Biden, whether that was intentional or not. I guess the impeachment inquiry might get to the bottom of that.

And then another piece of evidence that leads into some news this week is that two IRS whistleblowers have testified that the Department of Justice slow walk to the investigation into Hunter Biden. intentionally was trying to let the statute of limitations run out on certain crimes or alleged crimes. The IRS whistleblowers testified that a U.S. high-ranking lawyer at the Department of Justice basically blocked them from getting to do a search of the president's home and certain interviews with the president. And they also testified basically that their language they used was an abuse of power at the DOJ to interfere on behalf of Hunter Biden, the president's son. So that was really a bombshell story that came out over the summer. It is further ratcheted up criticism of the Department of Justice, which has been under heavy fire for this and other things. And so Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before Congress this week

and had to answer for a lot of these alleged missteps at the Department of Justice. You covered that story, Casey. I mean, how did Attorney General Merrick Garland do? Was he credible? What did Republicans, House Republicans, um, respond to Garland's testimony? Your observations. Yeah. Sure. I mean, Merrick Garland is an interesting guy because he's really soft spoken.

He oftentimes just acted absolutely taken aback and incredulous that he would even be asked some of these questions, you know. And so I think it was kind of interesting, almost disconnect between how so many conservatives and Republicans view the Department of Justice. and seeing the Attorney General being shocked that someone would even ask this, when it's basically become a common talking point on the right, that the DOJ is corrupt and goes after conservatives and didn't prosecute, you know, they're not prosecuting, for instance, Biden over his classified documents,

but they're prosecuting Trump over his, right? So there's so many, you know, things like that, the social, working with social media companies to censor conservative viewpoints on the vaccine and the election and other things. And so there's a lot of evidence. So for Garland, it was like, how could you even say that, you know, we would target Catholics who do different things that he was asked about at the hearing? It was interesting. When it came to more specifics about the Trump decision, he really was just deflecting a lot.

He wouldn't give specifics. He was deferring to the prosecutor in charge of that specifically. And so I think he just didn't want to touch that. He didn't want to get involved. He didn't want to create, you know, any new things. for lawmakers to grab on it. So I think from a political, maybe PR standpoint on his end, he was successful in doing that and kind of just navigating, towing this line. But I don't think he was successful in putting any of these concerns to bed, right? I mean, he did it. I don't think he really

convinced any American people or these lawmakers that the DOJ hasn't been biased in the past. If they already thought that, I don't think this testimony really swayed them. Right. And of course, this impeachment inquiry, Casey, is going on as President Joe Biden. seeks re-election. Going to be in front of voters next year in November 2024 is the next presidential election on the other side of the aisle, former President Trump, also running for re-election by far. The GOP frontrunner heading into primary season, Trump faces his own significant legal challenges and, in fact, has been indicted in four separate cases. It sets up an unprecedented, And crazy primary and presidential election season.

Give you the last word case before we have to shut down. Yeah, I mean, you're right. We're stepping in the unprecedented territory to both presidential leading candidates under some kind of investigation, heading into a crazy election year. You know what that means, Dan, is people are going to have to stay in touch at thecentersquare.com and on this podcast every single week. That's right, America in Focus. You can listen to it at America's Talk. are all of your favorite podcast sites, but we are out of time.

Listeners can keep up with what's certainly going to be a developing story and more at the center square.com for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McHale. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening.