The Duran Podcast - Shokin returns. Biden impeachment inquiry gains momentum

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

Shokin returns. Biden impeachment inquiry gains momentum

All right, Alexander. Let's talk about the possible impeachment of U.S. President Joe Biden, an impeachment process that may be beginning. In the United States, the House Speaker McCarthy, he hinted at a process getting underway, but it wasn't a very strong statement from McCarthy. It's been very much a lot of the same talk about collecting more evidence and following the money and stuff like that. But with each passing day, each passing week, it looks like the Republicans in the House are starting to gain more courage with some sort of an impeachment process taking place in the United States with Biden. There's a lot of, I don't want to say evidence, but a lot of interesting connections between Biden and Ukraine and Hunter Biden

and pseudonyms and Shokin reappearing in a Fox News interview. And now we also have Jonathan Turley also weighing in on what could be an impeachment process unfolding in the United States with Biden. The nexus of everything is Ukraine, which, you know, it doesn't surprise us. Shouldn't surprise anybody watching this video. We've actually been talking about Burisma and Hunter and Bioreen. Biden for three years, maybe, three, four years. And it seems like finally we're getting to a point where a lot of the stuff we've been talking about pre-special military operation is seeing the light of day in the mainstream, at least the mainstream that's willing to report on this. Anyway,

where are we with the scandal that's developing around U.S. President Joe Biden? Well, I'm going to say what I think. I think that there is actually now likelihood that an impeachment inquiry will be launched in the fall sometime in the autumn, maybe in October. And the reason I think that is because of Jonathan Turley weighing in. Now, Jonathan Turley is this lawyer. He's a practicing lawyer. He's also a professor of public law, Shapiro Professor of Public Law at George Washington University. He has a blog, which he's a professor of public law at George Washington University. He has a blog, which he's a professor of public law. He has a blog, which he's a professor of public law, everybody who's interested in legal matters in the United States. The Reeds, which is Reza Lachyta. He's been involved in all kinds of impeachment inquiries. He was an expert who advised in both of the two Trump impeachments. And I believe he even was involved in earlier such discussions about other things. So he's a somebody who people take, take seriously. I mean, Not everybody agrees with him, but he is a heavyweight legal scholar. And he has written a very interesting piece on his blog, Resibson, Lockwoodter,

in which he says that an impeachment is now inevitable. Well, you might agree with that or you might not agree with that. And I, by the way, agree with your view. I think McCarthy is very far from being enthusiastic. about an impeachment of Biden and I would say that the Senate leadership the Republican Senate leadership is the same they don't want this thing to proceed to an impeachment

but Turley says it is inevitable and Turley has also disclosed I think this is absolutely fundamental that he's in contact with Republicans Republican Congress people and that he's now advising them about how to bring this impeachment process how to get it underway.

And he's very careful. He's not saying yet that the president ought to be impeached. What he's talking about is an impeachment investigation being launched. And the reason he's saying that is because of what I suspect is going to be seen eventually as this disastrous decision by Merrick Garland to appoint David Weiss a special counsel. David Weiss is the investigator. He's the federal prosecutor, I understand, in Delaware. He's been supposedly investigating Hunter Biden's affairs since 2018. He's not been making any kind of progress with those investigations or not much progress. He recently seemed to have come to this

sweetheart deal with Hunter Biden, which fell apart when it went to court. The judge really wasn't happy with it. And it disintegrated, which has reopened the whole thing. And that's opened up questions about David Weiss. There's also been complaints about him from whistleblowers and from other people within the FBI. They say that he's been intentionally slow walking the investigation. I've seen that's true, but that's what people are saying increasingly. And it's certainly the case that this investigation, straightforward as a way.

it looks does appear to have been taking place for a very long time. And there's been more and more demands for special counsel to be appointed. And then Merrick Garland decided to exceed these demands. He appointed special counsel. He picked David Weiss, who is the same federal prosecutor that everybody has been complaining about. And of course, Weiss works for the Justice Department. He's a member of the Justice Department, whereas Special Council is supposed to be appointed from outside the Justice Department.

So there's criticism that this is contrary to the rules. And what Turley is saying is that there's now accumulating evidence connected with the Burisma affair, and Weiss cannot be trusted to investigate it, because he's failed up to this point, and that the appointment of special counsel, of Weissor Special Counsel, means that the investigation, which must take place, in the public interest that he do take place, can only be conducted by Congress. The Justice Department can no longer be trusted to conduct that investigation, and that the only way to conduct the investigation properly is, by holding an impeachment inquiry. Now, I think that is of you, an opinion from Turley,

that is going to carry a great deal of weight, and I think that it means, essentially, that despite the doubts from people like McCarthy and McConnell, we will probably see a impeachment inquiry set up in the fall. Okay, so, you know, the problem that I think a lot of people have with everything that's taking place connected to, to Biden and Burisma and a possible impeachment inquiry is the fact that you have people like you have Republicans, McCarthy and McConnell going on and on about how they need more evidence.

They have to connect more dots. They have to follow more money. They want to make sure that they have their teas crossed and their eyes dotted before they move forward with an impeachment inquiry. when they impeach Trump, the Democrats, for much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, less. Why do we have these two scenarios, which are so different, one, the Democrats and how they went after Trump, once again, connected to Ukraine, a phone call that he had with Zelensky, and you have this mountain of evidence. maybe it's not, you know, maybe it's circumstantial evidence. Maybe it's not, you know, real, you know, bank account records and money flows and stuff

like that. But I mean, you know, come on, it's as clear as day that you definitely, if you go by the Democrats, a standard that they set up, the precedent that they set up, it's crystal clear that McCarthy has a ton of leeway, a ton of, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, of precedent to go after Biden. I mean, this is a, as far as an impeachment inquiry goes, this is a slam dunk. Well, I would have thought, sir, I mean,

and stress again, we're talking about an impeachment inquiry. We're not talking about an impeachment itself, but there is, as you absolutely correctly say, large amount of evidence out there now, which appears to justify an impeachment inquiry. I think with McCarthy and McConnell, it's really very simple. and not just them, but people like Romney as well.

The fact is they absolutely hate Donald Trump. They hated Donald Trump right from the moment he came down that lift in, or was it the escalator in Trump Tower back in 2015. They loathe Donald Trump. Biden is one of themselves. I mean, he was in Congress for all those years. He was in the Senate for all of those years. They don't hate Biden in the United.

the same way that they hate Donald Trump. So, you know, in the end, they had to vote to acquit Donald Trump, or most of them did. Romney, of course, in the second impeachment, voted to convict Donald Trump. But, you know, most of the Republicans, even McConnell in the end, had to vote for his acquittal, but they did it through gritted teeth. They'd have loved to vote to convict him. but they don't want to put Biden through the same mill and especially they don't want to put Biden through the same process

if horror of horrors by undermining Biden that opens the way for the orange man to come back in the election next year I mean to be clear again McConnell and McCarthy, if they can't get a Republican they like, a Mike Pence or a Nicky Haley,

they would far rather have Biden as president in the White House than they would have Donald Trump. So that's ultimately the whole issue. And given that that is so, if you're talking about McCarthy, and remember, setting up the impeachment inquiry would be McCarthy's decision in theory. But, you know, they'll all be talking with each other. McConnell will be talking with McCarthy. They'll all be talking with the Republican donors, you know, the people who give the money, who are basically on with McConnell.

Anyway, I don't think McCarthy would want to send up an inquiry, even if Joe Biden came along to Congress and said to McCarthy, you know, I did all of these things, I took the bribes, I engaged in all these criminal things. Even then, I think McCarthy would say, well, you know, this isn't quite a clue, There's nuances here. There's things we don't quite understand.

We still need to do more investigation. The problem is there's going to come a point where I think that even McCarthy and McConnell can't hold this thing back anymore. And on the one hand, the Weiss appointment, I think really did offend and anger an awful lot of people, even people who up to this point have been. been, you know, wanting to look the other way. I mean, it was so blatant and so absurd.

Secondly, the Trump prosecutions have, again, angered an awful lot of people and have made people ask the very question that you're asking. If we're going to investigate Donald Trump on all of these strange cases, and we discussed them with Robert Barnes in our live stream, that how can we not look at what Biden has been doing? But also, the evidence, as you're righty say, is starting to accumulate. So remember what Biden said. He said that his son had done no wrong. Well, he clearly did, because if he hadn't done anything wrong,

why would he have tried to enter into this sweetheart deal with Weiss? So that's already wrong. He said that he had no idea about his son's business dealings. even the White House is no longer saying that anymore. And we have lots of evidence that he was involved in those, at least was aware of or knew about his son's business dealings. He said on television in a public debate with Donald Trump on the eve of the 2020 election,

or rather he gave the impression that the leaking of the laptop was a Russian disinformation exercise, hiding behind what those um, um, intelligence, retired intelligence officers had said. Well, there's excellent reason to think that Biden himself knew otherwise. There's such as thing as lying by a mission as well as by act. Arguably, therefore you could say that was a lie.

What he said on that TV debate. It misled the American people about the laptop. It happened just before the election. and had Biden been honest, well, it might have had an effect perhaps on what happened later in the election. Who's to know? And then, of course, we've had all the other evidence

that now is starting to come together. We've had Devon Archer coming along to Congress, talking about the fact that Biden was there at many of the discussions and many of the meetings and on the conversations. Of course, he didn't directly participate in any of the business deals, but he was there. So that puts him back in the frame.

We've had all these talks, all this information you were talking about, you know, the names, the different names, the money trails, all of those things. And now we've had this extraordinary interview which shocking has given to Fox.

Now, you know, none of this has been tested, and we have to be careful that a lot of people are going to argue with what Shockin said. But remember, when we talked about this all those years ago, I was explaining about this phenomenon called Krisha in this part of the world.

In other words, you know, the ceiling above you, the protection, in other words, that association with a powerful man gives you in this part of the world. And what Shokin effect essentially was saying was that Berrits, Burisma, the oligarch behind it, when they brought in when they brought in Hunter onto the board of Burisma, they were buying Krisha. They were doing exactly in effect what we said they were doing and that this was effective. It got shock in himself fired

and it brought the investigations that he was launching into Burisma. and if I didn't launch, they actually preceded him, but the investigations that he was conducting into Burisma to an end. Now, let me stress again, that's shockin's evidence, or at least what he's saying on Fox. It may be, and when he's questioned, you know, it will turn out that that evidence, that testimony he's giving can be shaken.

But for all, you know, for all that, it's there, It's what shocking is saying now. You can't disregard it. He was the prosecutor general of Ukraine. He was the man who got sacked. He's an obvious witness in an impeachment inquiry. You know, the Democrats could put whatever questions they want to him then. But it seems to me that there's a good case now for calling him.

So it's becoming very, very difficult for McCarthy and McConnell. for all that they would want to not have an impeachment inquiry, to deny now that the grounds for an impeachment inquiry are there, both the factual grounds or the evidence that we've just been talking about, and the fact that without an impeachment inquiry, these facts will never be properly investigated, which is the point that Turley is making. right it's it's an impeachment inquiry too this is not even an impeachment this is this is so

ridiculous that they're laughing at at us they're laughing at the american people at us they're laughing at the american people all of them republicans democrats left right everybody in congress everybody in the biden white house the dnc the rnc they are laughing mocking the american people with this. We have Biden on video, Alexander, at a think tank event saying that I withheld the $1 billion until

Potoshenko fired Shokin. I mean, this is crazy stuff. You have him on video admitting to it. He admitted it. I held back a billion dollars unless a president of another country

fired the prosecutor that was investigating the company that my son was on the board of. And now, and now we have, and now we have a war, a war where the United States has given what? 150 billion, 200 billion, 300 billion?

Who knows? Because Congress, they don't want to audit any of it. They don't want any type of audit as to all the money and where it's going to Zelensky. This is ridiculous. Listening to you, explain it. This is my son.

summary of it. They don't want to impeach Biden because Biden is their buddy. He was in the Senate for 50 years, so he's their friend. They don't want to impeach Biden because they don't want to open the way for a Trump presidency. And maybe, just maybe, they don't want to proceed with impeachment of Biden because they don't want to jeopardize Project Ukraine. They don't maybe want to implicate their own involvement in what's going on in Ukraine over or what has been going on in Ukraine over the many, many years since the Obama administration overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014. We can never, ever, ever forget that. The Obama administration with Joe Biden as vice president overthrew the democratically elected government

of Yanukovych. John McCain was in Maidan Square, speaking. to the protesters, the protesters, when they overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine. And then you have Lindsey Graham in Ukraine last week talking about how Zelensky has to have elections in 2004 because of democracy. Because of democracy. What are you talking about? Man, you overthrew the democratically elected government in 2014. What are you talking about that Zelensky now has to have elections next year because of democracy? It's all a ploy.

It's all a trick so that they can convince Congress to give more money, more unaudited money to Ukraine. That's what all of this is about. They're all, you know, they're all involved in one way or another in this. When I mean all of them, I don't know who. I don't have it. This is just my hunch. This thing is a cancer on the United States of America. And this project Ukraine is going to drag the entire country.

down. It is going to drag the entire United States of America down. That's what's going to happen in the end unless someone in the Republican Party finds the courage to move forward with impeachment of Biden. Well, that's my rant. I mean, you're sorry. It's entirely, it's frustrating. It's frustrating. It is deeply frustrating. And I mean, notice that it's called an inquiry, not an investigation. We don't talk about it as an investigation. We call it an inquiry instead. you know, when the inquiry is set up, you can be absolutely sure that it will be different. You remember during the first Trump impeachment, you had the Republicans who were picked to appear by Nancy Pelosi on the committee. They were not.

And the fact that, you know, a lot of the information took place in behind closed doors and all those kinds. I am sure that we will see nothing like that this time. I mean, this would be completely different. I'll tell you what the problem is. I think you're absolutely correct. They're being pushed into doing this. They don't want to do this. This isn't something they want to do at all.

But they have been pushed to do it. And you're quite right. They'll try and use it in exactly the kind of way that you said. The problem they have is this. Set up any kind of inquiry at all. Any sort of inquiry. The problem is there is now so much evidence out there that it's going to become very, very difficult to keep this thing completely under control.

That is always the problem with any sort of inquiry. We see that they've tried to keep it under control with the David Weiss operation, with the appointment of David Weiss's special counsel, and already that's backfired. So set up another inquiry, an impeachment inquiry. Say this is going to be the one that's going to look into everything. Try and slow walk that. That's going to lead to problems as well. And of course, yes, the media will support you.

But people have ways now of finding out the news when it's getting the sense that, you know, it's proving more and more difficult to keep this thing under control. And that's, I think, the worry that they must have. Yeah, you know, where does this end, Alexandra? I mean, I go back to what I was saying. This is destroying the United States of America. This whole Ukraine thing going back to 2014, maybe even before, maybe it predates the coup. But this involvement of the United States in Ukraine and all of the funny business that has been going on in Ukraine is bringing down the United States of America. They need to figure out a way to get out of this thing.

I mean, people that really care about preserving the USA, they need to find a way to get out of this thing. Because the more this goes on, the more this charade continues, the wish it gets for the U.S. And just take a look at Europe and the EU. It's collapsing. Well, absolutely. Well, can I just say on that? I mean, you're absolutely right to bring this up about, you know, the money flows that have been going in. Now, I saw an article recent.

I don't remember where it was. But it was very, very interesting, which said that, you know, the money that has, you know, the money that has been spent in Washington by Ukraine, or let's not say Ukraine, let's say various people connected to Ukraine to buy political influence, has dwarfed the amount of money that the Saudis spent in any one year. I mean, that, that gives you an idea of, you know, the extent to which, you know, influence has been bought in effect over the last couple of years. Ukraine and as you absolutely rightly say it is an absolute disaster it is it is contaminated polluted the entire political process in the United States is

warped political decision-making is thrown things completely off course in the most disastrous ways and it's not difficult to understand how it's happened now having said that I can't tell you how it will end I mean there are various scenarios the resignation of the president being won. I mean, you know, if this evidence becomes too difficult to keep under control, you come along, you say to Joe, Joe, you know, this really is causing too many questions to be asked.

You're not in the best of health. You're of a certain age. Maybe the time has come to step down and make way to someone else. And that's one way of ending. And then, you know, you don't even have to, you can say, well, there's no point in continuing these investigations any longer because the president is off the scene. So, you know, got a new president. We don't need to worry about that anymore.

You close everything down that way. That's one way. Or you have an impeachment. You keep the evidence, control the evidence to the extent that you can. You prevent it even getting to the Senate. Or it goes to the Senate and it fails in the Senate. because remember there are half the Senate are Democrats and they will probably all want to vote against an impeachment.

So all of these scenarios exist. All of these problems exist. Another one is you prolong the impeachment investigation or inquiry as long as you can. You slow walk it. But of course that is dangerous because slow walking and inquiry keeps it kind of can end. up by keeping it in the news and itself becoming the news. So that's a that's a that is a dangerous thing. So I can't tell you how this is going to end, but I can say I think what is the end point of it? The end point is November 24. If this thing

hasn't been cleared out one way or another by then, if the president is still in place, if he's not been politically damaged, if he's re-elected in November 2024, then all of this dies and all the problems that you said in the United States, the cancer that you talked about, it will continue, and in my opinion, it will metastasize and grow much worse. So that's, they just have just over a year to sort it out. I don't know. Is this a stretch to say that the U.S. can't survive this, another four years of Biden, more of this, this corruption, this decay? I mean, if they don't resolve this issue, Biden, Burisma, Hunter, Ukraine, the conflict's all connected. My point is that it's all connected and it predates the special military operation. Forget about Russia. This really isn't a Russia thing. You think about it. I mean, Russia's connected because of its geography, its history,

its many interests in what's going on in its neighborhood. Absolutely. But the business dealings in Ukraine, the corruption, the coup, yes, they're the neocons, and they're playing their geopolitical chessboard. But it's much worse than that, you know. it's, it's, well, it's vastly worse

to that because, can I just say, it goes much deeper than all of that, yeah. If you want to understand why

the neocons are so powerful, it is because they're functioning within a political system, which is not itself functioning. That's the fundamental

difference. I mean, corruption is always existed in the United States. There have been times when corruption has been of a very high levels.

I mean, and I mean, if you go back to American history, you will know when. But always, it has never affected the overall integrity of the system. There's always been people who have been there

who have been unaffected by, who have been able to push back, who have been able to take the right decisions at the right times and who are in a position to make those decisions. And that's always kept the system functioning. If the danger with this, you talked about, I think it's a good description of cancer because the point about a cancer is that eventually if it grows too much

in this kind of context, it becomes the system. It actually becomes the way in which political life becomes organized, not just in Washington, within the Beltway, but across the United States as a whole. Now, you know, we are familiar with that. I mean, you know, in Greece, I've seen that happen. I mean, where corruption becomes ultimately the way in which politics is organised. And to be frank, to say it straightforwardly, if that happens in the United States and it's closer to that point than it has ever been in its history, I mean, this is far worse than the tweed ring, for example, in the 1860s, or the, you know, corruptions that the progressives forward.

against and the run up to the you know the turn of the 19th century the end of the 19th and early 20th century it's far worse than any of that if that happens then it the country that exists what what the political system the country that exists it may call itself the United States but it is not the United States anymore it's a system where it's not the Constitution that's functioning it what is functioning is a informal network that may talk about the constitution but isn't applying it anymore. And we've already discussed in many programs how that is already visible and is becoming the case. We did that program, that live stream with Robert Barnes, in which we discussed the extraordinary nature of some of the cases that have been brought against Donald Trump.

Yeah. Okay. I guess we'll end it there. It's very sad, very depressing to see this unfolding. It's it really is. It's very frustrating. It is not just sad. It is it is the greatest tragedy. It is an absolute disaster. You know, to see this happen to the United States, the Republic of Washington, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, I mean it makes me want to be one. It makes me want to tear out my hair. But it is living very dangerously now. And I think Americans, above all, need to grasp that fact.

Yeah, all right. Well, ended there at the durand.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, bitch shoots, and telegram, and Rackfin. Go to the Duran shop, 10% off. Use the code. Good day. Take care.