Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, is among those questioning the very foundation for the GOP moving forward with their recent impeachment inquiry targeting President Joe Biden in the wake of the departure as Speaker of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). It was a declaration by McCarthy — rather than the more standard vote by the full House — that set up any procedural foundation for the investigation.
“Setting aside the fact that, in light of Congressman McCarthy’s sudden ouster as Speaker at the hands of the Republican Conference, there is no longer any discernible procedural basis for an impeachment inquiry, your subpoenas are in no way tailored to seek information relevant to your asserted legislative purpose,” Raskin said in a recent letter to Oversight chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.). Raskin denounces Republican subpoenas demanding financial records for individuals tied to President Joe Biden including his well-known son, Hunter Biden.
Raskin described the demands for records as wide-ranging and without any clear correlation to building any actual impeachment case. And there’s a precedent for this within the GOP’s investigations already. Republicans obtained a vast quantity of personal financial information for Hunter Biden’s business associate John R. Walker, showing in granular detail years of his private and personal transactions. “These statements covered information such as how much Mr. Walker pays for his child’s dance lessons, when he has been to the hospital, how many parking tickets he has paid, how often he eats at Papa John’s or has coffee at Starbucks, and how much he spends on groceries at Safeway,” Raskin recapped.
And this approach is roughly the same taken by committee Republicans with the more recent subpoenas that Raskin was denouncing. Comer recently tried to use a large payment from a brother of the president to the now president himself as supposed evidence potentially ensnaring Joe in corruption. However, the money given to Joe Biden was identified as repayment for a personal loan, and Raskin says there is specific documentation of Joe having, in fact, originally made the loan, which accounts for both ends of the transaction. Read more at this link.
