The impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden is currently underway and focuses on his years of influence-peddling and corruption to enrich himself and his family. In the past year, the House Oversight Committee has accumulated a trove of evidence against Biden. Yet Biden himself may have just added even more grounds for impeachment.
When did he do that? It relates to statements he made after the release of the Hur report, which concluded he willfully retained, mishandled, and disclosed classified information. Special Counsel Robert Hur chose not to bring charges against Biden because he is essentially too senile to stand trial.
Biden infamously decided to address the nation after the release of the report. It wasn't the best move on his part, and it made things worse. At issue here is when Biden addressed the part of the report that said he couldn't remember when his son Beau died.
“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden said. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
It turns out that Hur didn't ask the question. Biden brought up Beau's death, according to sources familiar with the interview.
According to George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley, this presents Joe Biden with a major problem.
"If true, this isn’t something the White House can simply fix with a few rewrites in brackets. The corrected version would read: 'How in the hell dare [I] raise that? Frankly, when [I raised] the question, I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.'"
This would "make referencing recent conversations with dead foreign leaders look like moments of clarity," Turley explained on his website. "While we await the spin, the report indicates the president is either mentally diminished or openly deceptive in such moments. The latter seems more likely. Biden clearly went to the podium intending to make this attack on Hur. That means his staff probably vetted it."
Now, here's where things get interesting.
"The use of the White House to spread false claims about these investigations is a highly precarious practice. It can be the thing that impeachments are made off," Turley explained. "Ian Sams, spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, has been especially aggressive in attacking critics of the President and spinning these reports. He was recently confronted about false claims in connection to the Hur report."
Turley continued, "The use of White House staff to carry out an alleged disinformation campaign can raise alleged violations of the public trust and misuse of federal staff and resources. Such allegations have been included in past articles of impeachment and would be most serious in relation to the ongoing investigation into influence peddling by the Biden family. In the most recent controversy, the aggressive effort of the White House Counsel’s office to shape the coverage led to a rare rebuke from the White House Correspondents Association."
Since the House of Representatives is currently investigating corruption claims linked to Biden's tenure as vice president and afterward, Turley said that utilizing "federal personnel like Sams to spread or repeat false claims could make such allegations 'evergreen' in tying them to contemporary ‘in office” conduct."
I don't expect anything to happen on this front, but it's interesting nonetheless.
