The three major news networks largely bypassed live coverage of the latest chapter in a House GOP-led inquiry of whether to impeach President Joe Biden.
That in and of itself was a sign of just how much the effort has been losing steam, even among Republican lawmakers.
The House Oversight hearing, titled Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office, featured Tony Bobulinski a former associate of Hunter Biden. Also testifying, albeit remotely, was Jason Galanis, another associate, who is in an Alabama prison serving a sentence for securities fraud.
Also testifying, as a Democratic witness, was Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani. Parnas said that Giuliani, in advance of the 2020 presidential election, trafficked in false claims that the Biden’s were involved in a Ukrainian corruption scheme, and that the Russians were behind the disinformation effort.
The hearing itself opened as a bit of a circus. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) came to the hearing wearing a Vladimir Putin mask, telling reporters that “I just came to thank [committee chairman] James Comer for using all of our intelligence and using it in the committee. Maybe he can come see the technology in our grocery stores,” Moskowitz, still wearing the mark, told reporters.
In his opening statement, Bobulinski said that “Joe Biden was ‘the Brand’ being sold by the Biden family” as part of a “foreign influence peddling operation – from China to Ukraine and elsewhere.” He claimed that Biden met with him and other of his son’s business associates “to further the business, despite being buffered by a complex scheme to maintain plausible deniability.” But Biden has said that he had no part in his son’s business dealings, and Hunter Biden testified in a closed door hearing last month that his father took no part.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pressed Bobulinski, “Did you witness the president commit a crime?”
He answered, “Yes.”
“What crime have you witnessed?” she asked.
They had a tense exchange. He cited RICO statutes, while she reminded him that those were categories of crimes and not specific charges.
“What were are seeing here today is a continuation of the 15-month saga of the Republican majority lost in the desert. Impeachment 101,” Ocasio-Cortez.
Parnas told the committee that “the only information pushed on the Bidens in Ukraine has come from one source, and one source only: Russia and Russian agents. The impeachment proceedings that bring us here now are predicated on false information spread by the Kremlin. Everyone involved knew they were sharing lies.”