Morning Wire - Biden Impeachment Inquiry & Shutdown Showdown | 9.29.23

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

The House held its first impeachment inquiry into presidential corruption allegations, a government shutdown looms as Congress scrambles to make a deal, and the Clinton Global Initiative focuses on Ukraine. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Cynch: Download the Cynch app and get your first tank exchange for just $10 with promo code WIRE. Visit http://cynch.com/offer for details. Black Rifle Coffee: Get 10% off your first order or Coffee Club subscription with code WIRE: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The GOP-led House holds its first impeachment inquiry hearing involving corruption allegations against President Biden. Hunter Biden referred to access to his father as the keys to his family's only asset. Those words are going to come back and haunt Hunter Biden and his family forever. Who went on the record? And did the hearing help or hurt the president? I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Vickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, September 29th, and this is morning wire. With the deadline for the government shutdown coming this weekend, negotiations over funding remain stalled. My whole focus, what's in my mind what drives me is the American people.

What's causing the hold up and have lawmakers made any progress. And after going quiet for several years, the Clinton Global Initiative is back and raising money for Ukraine. We talked to an investigative author who's following the money. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. House Republicans held their first impeachment inquiry into President Biden Thursday, featuring four constitutional experts. The hearing chaired by Congressman James Comer focused on whether there's enough evidence to hold the inquiry and potentially launch a full impeachment.

Here to discuss the events is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus. Hey Dave, who were these first witnesses and what exactly did they bring to the table yesterday? Good morning, John. The expert witnesses that Republicans invited were law professor Jonathan Turley and former prosecutor. Eileen O'Connor and Bruce Dubinsky. Democrats brought in Professor Michael Gerhardt. An issue in this first hearing really was what the bar is to actually impeach Joe Biden. The three GOP witnesses all said that there was sufficient evidence for the inquiry and that if that evidence continues to be investigated and bears more fruit, that an impeachment

would be in order. Professor Gerhardt disagreed, arguing that the inquiry is akin to Hunter Biden getting a speeding ticket in Joe's car and holding Joe responsible. An analogy, Republicans obviously wholly reject. Right. Let's start with these GOP witnesses. What was the thrust of their arguments in favor of moving forward with the inquiry despite these objections from Democrats? Purley urged the committee to focus first on the criminal bribery allegations against Joe Biden, arguing that though the Constitution does not require a crime to impeach, they should set the bar as high as possible. He said that the FBI form showing that specific bribery allegation was not

enough on its own to impeach, but that in the context of the web of companies that the Biden's created to funnel foreign money to themselves and Hunter Biden's own texts about giving Joe money, that all of that together made it a compelling case, certainly with dots that need to be connected. Right. Now, Democrats in the White House continue to argue that there is no evidence that Joe Biden took money directly. Did the witness, address that issue? Yes. Here are the GOP witnesses made clear that money flowing to a family member has been considered bribery by the courts in the past. So in fact, the committee doesn't need a smoking wire transfer to the president. It's enough to establish that Hunter Biden was

selling influence and that Joe was aware of it. So that's really where the GOP members are likely to focus as the inquiry proceeds. Yeah, that makes sense. The hearing got testy at one point as one Democratic member leveled some really personal attacks on the witnesses. What happened there? Representative Raja Krishna Morthy launched into an attack on all three of the GOP witnesses, pulling up a social media post about the southern border by O'Connor to paint her as biased. And then, shockingly, he attacked Turley for having written a 2006 op-ed in defense of polygamy. Here's a bit from those exchanges. It says it is an engineered death spiral.

Now let me show you another posting that you put up on your professional LinkedIn account. May I respond? You can respond when I'm done with my question. Professor Turley, you liken polygamists to quote, persecuted minorities, and you said polygamy is, quote, a practice with deep and good faith religious meaning. Isn't that what you said? I represented the sister wives family in challenging a polygamy prosecutor. The answer is yes.

You've been crusading for legalizing polygamy for you. you. This had nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of the hearing, and it's frankly been a pattern. We saw Democrats personally attacked journalists such as Matt Taibi when they testified. Same thing with the whistleblowers. The message has clearly been sent that anyone who testifies in Congress against the interests of Joe Biden will have their character impugned by the Democrats on the committee. That's something which truly strenuously objected to. Unsurprisingly, so what was the main argument that Democrats made to support their claim that this whole inquiry is a sham.

Democrats continue to argue that this scandal is all about Hunter Biden and has nothing to do with Joe Biden, though they didn't really grapple with the evidence that shows Joe's involvement, such as Devin Archer's testimony about phone calls and dinners with Hunter's business partners. They also, and I know you'll be shocked by this, brought up Donald Trump a lot, either to allege that he is really the one behind the impeachment inquiry, or that it's only happening to deflect from Trump's own legal woes. Yeah, didn't see that one coming. Now, final question.

The big three news networks, ABC, NBC and CBS chose not to air the hearing yesterday. Should we read into that? Yes, and it doesn't take a Ph.D. And mass communications to interpret it. The reality is that the legacy media has made it very clear they don't want to cover the allegations against Biden about as much as they do want to cover the allegations against Donald Trump. The GOP has taken some steps to force some coverage of the sitting president. but it'll take more than a hearing, apparently.

Yeah, Pierce so. Dave, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. A possible government shutdown looms over Congress and negotiations on a stopgap measure are snagged on a group of hardline conservatives in the House. The hardliners, led by Florida Republican Matt Gates, say they are holding the line on spending, but critics say they placed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

in an impossible situation. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the likelihood of a government shutdown. Tim, thanks for joining us. So first off, what specifically is Congress fighting about? A mix of things, but the bottom line for Gates and his conservative coalition is spending. The holdouts say that the United States can't take more deficit spending with a national debt of over $33 trillion, roughly $100,000 per American citizen. But they've placed McCarthy in a difficult spot.

He wants to pass at least a stopgap measure to avoid a shutdown and give lawmakers a longer runway to negotiate on. Otherwise, Republicans will be in a political battle over who takes the blame between them or Democrats. Republicans historically have not done well in these types of fights, and that's got to be on McCarthy's mind. He said he plans to bring a stopgap measure up for a vote today that would fund the government through November 17th, but he may not have the votes in his caucus to get it through. Nearly a dozen Republican members have said flatly they'll vote against a stopgap. The holdouts want Congress to negotiate and pass separately each of the 12 appropriations bills necessary to fully fund the government and to do that without a stopgap. That's pretty much

impossible at this point as each bill takes weeks or months to iron out and government funding is set to run out just after midnight on Sunday. So given that, what are McCarthy's options? Well, from his position, his best option would be to convince the budget hawks into passing a continuing resolution and then continuing to work on appropriations. He's got to work within his conference, though. Any attempt to cut a deal with House Democrats or move forward on a bipartisan spending bill in the Senate could spark a who among House Republicans. Here's Texas Republican Chip Roy speaking to radio host Glenn Beck on Wednesday. What House Republican leadership needs to understand, you go cut a deal with Democrats to do this, and it is the end. They need to understand that. What does that mean to you? It will be World War

Three within the Republican Party. If McCarthy can't convince enough the Republicans to support a stopgap, then we're likely headed for a shutdown. Colorado Republican Ken Buck said on CNN that he thinks that's the most likely outcome. This is more the same type of theater that we've seen in the past. When we had a debt ceiling problem, we ran it right up until the end, and then we spend too much money. I anticipate that we will do the same thing here. We will run right up until the end.

We may shut down for a few days, and then a bill will come to the floor that has too much spending in it. It will get Democrat votes. It'll get a lot of Republican votes. It'll pass. People will feel relieved that we're no longer shut down. The reality is people should be more. upset that we've spent too much money. So what are Republican priorities when it comes to spending?

They mainly have to do with Ukraine and the southern border. House conservatives want to reduce aid to Ukraine or at least get better oversight on how it's spent. They also want more funding for border security. This conservative block also wants to cut spending across the board and take a step toward a more responsible budget. So what would happen in the event of a government shutdown? A lot of federal employees would stop receiving paychecks. A lot of programs will go and fund. but the government will still continue its necessary functions, and social security checks will also continue to go out. And it's important to remember government employees will eventually get paid. They'll receive back pay after the shutdown is over.

Well, I guess we're down to the wire with just two days left. Tim, thanks for reporting. Anytime. After going quiet for several years, the Clinton Global Initiative is back, and they're focusing on raising money for Ukraine. Bill and Hillary Clinton's group says they're working to mobilize their existing partners, as well as new leaders from around the world to create and finance new commitments for Ukrainians. But a leading investigative author says there's more to this campaign than humanitarian aid. Peter Schweitzer joins us now.

He's president of the Government Accountability Institute and host of the Drill Down podcast. Peter, thanks for coming on. Sure. Now you've been following the money with the Clintons for years now. The Clinton Global Initiative has returned after laying low for a bit, and they're advancing a plan to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine. You've said that the Clintons have turned disaster relief into disaster capitalism. Could you explain what you mean by this and what you expect to happen in Ukraine?

Well, if you look at the way that the Clintons have operated the Clinton Global Initiative and Clinton Foundation, it's basically an iron triangle that includes government elites from a country that is usually resource-rich, but undergoing a crisis. It could be a civil war in Africa. It could be a shooting war in a place like Ukraine. but you've got corrupt local government officials, you have the Clintons, and then you have, as the third point of the triangle,

companies like mining companies and energy companies that are interested in the extraction of natural resources. And what those entities need in a country like Ukraine or a country like Congo is the government sign-off because in those countries, the government controls the energy and natural resources. And the Clintons become the convening authority that brings the other two.

together, and of course, they get their cut. So this is a commercial venture. It's a sophisticated approach. After Hillary Clinton left the political scene in 2016, donations tanked by more than 75%. Pretty clear that people saw the access is not something worth buying anymore, but they're now trying to resurrect it, and we'll see if they are successful. In picking Ukraine as the focal point, they have picked a country that is rich in natural resources, highly corrupt, but but also faces this existential foreign threat from Russia. So it's right for the kind of disaster capitalism that the Clintons have practiced in the past.

So who are the major players now in the Clinton Global Initiative? Obviously, you have the family, but which companies or entities are helping drive that organization? Well, what the Clintons do is they bring in corporate sponsors and corporate entities that operate the Clinton Global Initiative. They fund part of it, but then they are interested in deals that can happen in foreign companies. So in the case of the Clinton Global Initiative right now, one of their sponsors is SAE, which is a South

Korean company that if you go back to the Haitian earthquake when Hillary Clinton was in charge, they got a sweetheart deal from the Haitian government to basically set up a sweatshop manufacturing clothes with federal government support and the support of the Clinton Global Initiative. SAE is now sponsoring the Clinton Global Initiative again, and I would fully expect them to be given commercial deals and valuable deals in Ukraine. There's also a smattering of energy companies from Canada and elsewhere that I'm sure are looking to tap into the very lucrative Ukrainian natural gas and energy sector. Well, we'll keep an eye on what partnerships come out of this effort. Peter, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. That was Peter Schweitzer, president of GAI and

host of the Drill Down podcast. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know. Thank you.