With each new piece of shocking evidence that Joe Biden, as vice president, engaged with his son in a foreign bribery scheme, the national media react with something along the lines of, “But, ya know, in the end, Republicans haven’t yet proven anything in their Republican-y investigations.”
Devon Archer, a former business partner of Biden’s son Hunter, testified Monday to Congress that Joe Biden had been included on calls between the two partners by speakerphone. That’s in contradiction to the president’s repeated claim that when it comes to Hunter’s unreal professional life, he’s Helen Keller in a burka. Those speakerphone calls happened at least 20 times, according to Archer’s testimony. (And there are countless times that evidence indicates Biden may have met with his son’s other business associates.)
The New York Times reacted to that explosive development with a shrug. “Republicans have claimed repeatedly — and so far without proof — that the investigations implicate the president in corruption and crimes,” the paper’s post-testimony article said.
Still no proof! That’s all, folks! Everybody can go home!
Mike Allen of Axios was similarly unmoved. “In closed-door House testimony yesterday,” he wrote, “Hunter Biden’s former business partner didn’t give Republicans the smoking gun they’d hoped would show President Biden and his family used government connections for profit.”
It’s funny. I don’t recall every news item about the forever-long Russia-collusion story coming with an equivalent disclaimer about how Democrats had once again fallen short of proving anything. Where were the underwhelming notes about a failure to secure the “smoking gun”? Nowhere. Every time the saga was treated like an incremental unmasking of a coming certainty.
The walls are closing in… The noose is tightening… We’ve turned a corner… Wait for it… It’s coming… Just a minute… Okay… Hold on… One more time…
Democrats can literally claim anything with nothing to show for it — like, say, that it’s “clear” Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election — and it’s taken by the media as an authoritative allegation of grave consequence.
But when Republicans put forth truckloads of evidence — sworn testimony by three credible witnesses, text messages, government communications in conflict with the Bidens’ public accounts, FBI documentation of a confidential source detailing an alleged bribe between Biden and a Ukrainian energy magnate — it is steadfastly noted by the media that none of it amounts to “proof” or a “smoking gun.”
In any event, neither of those things are needed. Juries don’t convict murderers only in cases where the suspect is seen on video committing the crime or confessing his guilt. Sometimes it merely takes being caught in a lie about where he was and at what time. (See: Alex Murdaugh)
Admittedly, Devon Archer did not testify that Joe Biden was intimately involved in his son’s business calls, but rather that Biden’s presence for them was made aware for obvious reasons— assurance of access to the highest level of government. That’s after Biden denied for years that he ever communicated with his son’s business associates, that, in fact, he was all but entirely ignorant of what his son even did for work.
“I don’t know what he was doing. I know he was on the board. I found out he was on the board after he was on the board,” Joe said of Hunter’s Ukrainian business dealings in December 2019.
And it’s after an FBI source told the agency that he had spoken to a Ukrainian in business with Hunter, and who said that Biden, as U.S. vice president, was involved with at least one of their transactions.
Trump was just held legally liable for a sexual assault that has no independent corroboration, and that supposedly happened almost three decades ago.
If a jury didn’t need “proof” or a “smoking gun” to do that, then everything on public record pointing toward Joe Biden having engaged in corrupt and potentially criminal business deals is more than enough to impeach the president.
This article has been updated since publication.
