Wednesday vote on House impeachment inquiry risks remaining a strictly partisan question.
Despite overwhelming evidence of a corrupt Biden family influence peddling operation worth millions of dollars, not a single Democratic member should vote for an investigation into these allegations.
Nearly 70% of voters (and 40% of Democrats) believe Biden acted illegally or unethically, or both.
Yet all Democrats will vote to end any further investigation.
Even in our blindly partisan age, this is not an easy rationalization.
This is why MPs repeat three myths like a mantra on the Hill.
They will likely continue as the House moves to compel testimony from the major parties.
When I testified during Biden’s first impeachment inquiry Months ago, I stated that the threshold for an investigation was obviously met by the evidence of these massive payments and the contradictions of the president’s past claims.
Indeed, at least four articles of impeachment could be established if the Chamber confirms critical facts.
This is the purpose of an investigation: to demand not an indictment but answers. That is why I encouraged the House to take this formal vote.
However, three myths must be dispelled.
Joe Biden did not benefit from influence peddling
After years of suppressing the scandal, the media and even some Democrats now admit that Hunter Biden and his uncles have long been involved in influence peddling.
The United States has led global efforts for years to criminalize and deter this common form of corruption.
Recent testimony from Biden associates confirmed that they were selling “the Biden brand” and Joe Biden regularly summoned to meetings and met associates.
The last line of defense was to assert that even if millions may have been sent to Biden family members as part of gross influence peddling, there is no evidence that Joe actually benefited from the money unlike his children, brothers and grandchildren.
This false narrative is repeated despite the fact that courts have rejected this claim in actual criminal cases.
Not only were payments made to children and other family members considered benefits to a defendant, but the same is true in indictments.
I was lead counsel in the last judicial indictment tried before the Senate.
My client, Judge G. Thomas Porteous, had been indicted by the Chamber for, among other things, benefits received by his children, including wedding-related gifts.
It is Hunter Biden’s Addictions, Not His Actions
Democrats are once again insisting that an elaborate, multimillion-dollar influence-peddling operation was simply the product of Hunter being a drug addict who had been passed out for years.
The argument obviously cuts both ways.
Even if Hunter was an addict only thinking about his next fix, this only highlights that these foreign figures were giving millions for access to his father, not for his son’s advice or expertise.
But Hunter’s own lawyer refuted that claim, arguing in Hunter’s Gun Case that he had gotten out of his addiction just in time to sign the allegedly fake firearm form.
Much of the misconduct occurred when Hunter was, by his own lawyers’ account, suddenly clear and responsible.
The evidence belies claims that Hunter was not responsible for these transactions or the underlying influence peddling.
This shows a conscious and organized effort with the participation of his uncles and, in some cases, his father.
Efforts to portray Hunter as a purse-stealing junkie don’t match the evidence as he travels the world meeting with corrupt figures and securing millions.
It’s all about Hunter’s truck
The last myth is particularly infuriating.
The House Oversight Committee released new evidence showing payments to the president from Hunter’s business accounts.
The committee used the payments to show that these business accounts were used for personal payments and that there was a commingling of funds.
Democrats and the media immediately latched onto payments in which Hunter allegedly repaid loans to help pay for his truck.
Members told the Ways and Means Committee that it was simply “a father’s love” and there was nothing wrong with it.
It’s a cynical effort to focus on a few thousand dollars while ignoring the millions that committees have detailed during months of investigation.
Democratic members are making it seem like the impeachment inquiry is based on a few alleged truck payments. It’s not.
The truck payments represent just a handful of dozens of transfers found in these accounts to Hunter or his family members.
The fact is that the profits from influence peddling may have been used to reimburse the president, who supported his family members.
Dollars are fungible. Money in these accounts was mixed with personal expenses, including payments to Hunter’s father.
Once again, President Biden would be seen as benefiting from the millions of dollars paid to his family, even without direct payments.
The question is about his knowledge and involvement, not his benefits.
That no Democrats are demanding answers about this corruption is disappointing but not surprising.
But Biden now faces an impeachment inquiry that will finally demand answers, not myths, about the Biden family’s influence peddling operation.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.