This hilarious episode pushed itself ahead of two other posts because its almost too good to be true, and by good, I mean “Yecchh!”
Let’s begin with the Republican House majority, led by jerks like Rep. Matt Gaetz, forcing Speaker Kevin McCarthy to begin an impeachment inquiry against President Biden. This is incompetent, irresponsible and unethical. To begin with, it’s a waste of time and the public’s attention, which is too divided and limited already. Second, as the GOP proved the last time it executed a futile impeachment, it is more likely to lose votes than to gain them. Third, there is no chance of conviction in the split Senate, zero. If the impeachment is supposed to be some kind of an official rebuke, it won’t be seen as one or taken as one, so the mere impeachment itself will have no substantive consequence or significance. Finally, Republicans impeaching Biden will look like revenge and “tit-for-tat” rather than responsible statesmanship, because it is revenge to a great extent.
Next come the Democrats and their news media agents screaming that there aren’t constitutional grounds for impeachment. I think there are, but it doesn’t matter: the Democrats killed impeachment as a useful Constitutional tool of democracy deader than a frozen mackerel when it concocted two unjustified and purely political impeachments of Donald Trump. There was no impeachable high crime with the first, and the Democrats were so determined to slap Trump before he was out the door that they didn’t even follow due process with the second. Both were obviously partisan, and since members of the party and its allies had been advocating the impeachment of Trump for something literally before he served a day in office, there was no way either impeachment could be objectively viewed as legitimate.
Ethics Alarms has pointed out too many times since Phony Impeachment #1 that the Democrats have guaranteed not only that their next President—Biden, unfortunately—would be impeached as soon as the GOP had control of the House, but that every President hereafter would probably be impeached when the opposing party has a House majority in an endless cycle of payback. Yes, somebody should be standing up for the importance of legitimate impeachments, but the Democrats forfeited that privilege when they broke the system. (What? I thought Trump was the one who threatened constitutional government by defying “democratic norms”!) They are complaining that there aren’t proper grounds to impeach their President? This is as perfect an example of Ethics Estoppel as I can imagine. Democrats cannot make such an argument, not without provoking mockery and contempt. They asked for it, and now, having guaranteed that it would arrive as ordered, they are whining about insufficient evidence.
As should have been anticipated given the Biden administrations totalitarian attitude regarding the government’s right to try to manipulate what the public hears, reads and believes, a letter drafted by the Biden White House Legal Counsel’s Office and sent to major mainstream media news sources media to “ramp up their scrutiny” of House Republicans “for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.”
“Jawohl, mein Führer!” was apparently the desired and expected response. Jonathan Turley writes, calling the letter “marching orders,”
So White House lawyers are now enlisting the media in a counter media campaign against impeachment? ….Sams wrote “[c]overing impeachment as a process story – Republicans say X, but the White House says Y – is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable.” In other words, media should (and it has for years) decline to give equal attention to allegations against the Bidens and instead tell the public what the truth is. It is a call for media to tailor the coverage to push the position of the White House against this effort to ramp up the investigation into corruption. It is an approach that is already embraced by many in the media.
The letter has an uncomfortable feeling of marching orders to the media. This is a media that followed the lead of Biden associates in spreading the false story that the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation. This is the media that refused to acknowledge the authenticity of the laptop until only recently — long after the presidential election. This was the media that only recently admitted that President Biden has been lying about denials related to his son’s influence peddling.
Yet, the White House is now calling for the media to again form the wagons around the President and attack the impeachment effort as it did the laptop and the corruption investigation….what is most disturbing is that the White House shows no reluctance or concern in making such an open pitch to the press. There is a sense of license in using the media as an extension of the White House press push. The fact that this is a representative of the White House counsel’s office is particularly chilling. This is not the press office but the counsel for the President calling on media to form a unified front against the Republicans and the impeachment inquiry.
I think Turley understates the ominous nature of this. In his own terms, the President of the United States is sending “marching orders” to supposedly objective journalists whose clients are supposed to be the public, not the government. An ethical news organization would be obligated to tell the White House to back off and stop using its influence and power to produce regime supporting propaganda. Unfortunately, there aren’t any ethical news organizations.
But there are really stupid and incompetent ones. This is the funny part: CNN headlined the White House’s tactics, revealing that the letter was sent, in “White House sends letter to news execs urging outlets to ‘ramp up’ scrutiny of GOP’s Biden impeachment inquiry ‘based on lies’.” Then, in the second half of the story, CNN’s Oliver Darcy dutifully followed the same White House marching orders it seemed to be exposing. The letter is res ipsa loquitur, but CNN is incapable of seeing past its own bias:
The correspondence comes one day after McCarthy announced that he had directed three House committees to begin an impeachment inquiry into Biden. House Republicans, most of whom have denied that disgraced former President Donald Trump committed any wrongdoing, have long sought to baselessly portray Biden as a corrupt, crime-ridden politician engaged in sinister activities.
While news organizations have published innumerable fact checks on the matter, they have also often failed to robustly call out the mis- and disinformation peddled by Republicans in their coverage, frustrating officials in the Biden White House who believe that the news media should be doing more to dispel lies that saturate the public discourse….The Republican House-led investigations into Biden have yet to provide any direct evidence that the president financially benefited from Hunter Biden’s career overseas.
Shortly afterwards, CNN showed its loyalties by dutifully fact-checking GOP assertions in the impeachment inquiry. Changing its website’s masthead to “Democratic Toady Central” could hardly have been more direct.
Ethics Alarms 
You can almost see them moving the goalposts in real time.
“Biden was never involved with Hunter’s overseas business dealings! How many times do we have to tell you that he was never knowingly involved? We’ll repeat as many times as we have to that he never financially benefited from Hunter’s business dealings!”
That last part is almost clever. As far as I know, nobody was arguing that Joe was benefiting from Hunter’s business dealings. The issue is that Hunter financially benefited from Joe’s position. This CNN quote is some cursed hybrid of a motte-and-bailey argument, a strawman, and “duck season, wabbit season!” They’re trying to trick people into arguing a point that isn’t even relevant.
I recommend establishing standards for trust. If people argue about who should or shouldn’t be trusted simply based on who they are, we get nowhere. People choose sides based on who they already trust and every side gets further apart from the others.
However, if people define what sorts of behavior earn trust then people can start shifting their trust based on how they observe people behaving, and people can start behaving in ways that are worthy of trust. It gives people the opportunity to trust and be trusted, which a working society needs. If you can’t build trust where there was none before, you don’t have a civilization, only warring states.
EC,
If you can’t build trust where there was none before, you don’t have a civilization, only warring states.
That hits right to the core of where we are at and where we are headed. To a large extent, and it seems to be growing each year, I trust what agrees with me. That is an entirely subjective standard, and completely unworkable. But in a culture that has embraced moral relativism, even a certain degree of solipsism, any suggestion of a common standard is practically anathema.
What sort of behavior could we present as engendering trust? I have a short list: humility, honesty, and integrity. I’ll trust people if they know they are fallible, admit when they mess up, and hold themselves to objective standards, even when those standards hurt their position.
None of these traits jive well with our relativistic, solipsistic, power-grabbing political parties.
As I have written in comments of other posts, the Democrats have become the party of Maraxus, so we must become the party of Demona.
I do wonder how the Democrats became the party of Maraxus in the first place.
“People choose sides based on who they already trust”
Of course thy do, in my corner of the universe it’s called reputation. There’s no escaping it. No one mentions the tarnishing of the Republican reputation that the media keeps delivering to make them the villains in this story and by extension anyone who “voted red”. That’s concerning too. I think what you’re suggesting is the need to abandon the political parties and just go with the person on their own merits.
I have to ask, would this inquiry be irresponsible had there not been the push to oust Trump from office from day one? If not, then it should not be deemed irresponsible now. If yes, then I will agree with the premise it is unethical and irresponsible.
I do agree that it will be spun as tit for tat, but such a rationalization would require those using it to acknowledge that Trump impeachment was baseless as well. That which is appropriate by objective standards should not be treated as unethical. It should be the response to the objectively appropriate act that should be evaluated for being unethical. What appears to be being argued is that Trump’s impeachments were objectively appropriate but this impeachment as a response is not. I cannot agree to that conjecture.
If we establish the standard that the opposition party should never attempt to impeach the president after the president’s party impeached the opposition president in a prior term, then logic would hold that one side would be tempted to impeach the opposition to insulate itself when its party’s president is in power.
My understanding of the inquiry is that it is a preliminary step before an impeachment vote in the House. This gives the House committees more ability to access information. And, based on publicly available evidence it appears that the President did in fact participate in a process to solicit payments to family members from foreign entities to influence policy when he was VP. That adds a dimension to the inquiry which I am not sure is relevant. That being, can you impeach for “crimes” committed during a previous term in office.
I really don’t want to hear from the press that there is no direct evidence against Biden or any other official when they refuse to look at any potential wrongdoing by their guy. Hunter appears only to be the bag man, but you don’t have a bag man without having a Mr. Big in the mix. I also don’t buy the notion that Hunter was selling an illusion. People seeking favors don’t continue to pay for just the illusion.
You have to ask Joe why he stated he does not want to contain China just this last week and why the high-level CIA officials were offering bribes to CIA analysts to change their opinion on the source of the Covid 19 virus from the Wuhan lab leak to a natural origin as reported by the NY Post.
Agreed. Congress should just let the DOJ and Merrick Garland stonewall the investigation into Joe and Hunter and Burisma and China by appointing a “special counsel” so they can say everything’s protected because of an ongoing investigation? Did we do nothing when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
The good professor makes the counter argument: https://jonathanturley.org/2023/09/14/five-facts-that-compel-the-biden-impeachment-inquiry/
Well, I just wasted a bunch of time writing my defense below. I should have checked Turley first, as he is far more skilled than I.
Phony Impeachment #1 was about a phone call about the firing of Viktor Shokin, who was inveastigating Burisma.
Yes, it was a twofer: Get Trump, protect Biden.
It is fitting that this impeachment inquiry was about the subject of that phone call.
>>Did we do nothing when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Of course not. We sent Doolittle across the North Sea to bomb Berlin to show Mussolini what’s what. Fortunately a lot of our airmen were able to crash land in Ukraine and be sheltered by friendly partisans.
PLEASE: I’m a stickler for classic Animal House quotes. Bluto said, “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearly Harbor??”
My personal favorite Dem talking point is “There’s no proof!” Sounding like defense counsel is not that good a look.
Words matter. CNN is using the phrase “publicly available proof” which is the equivalent of saying something has all the “hallmarks” of Russian disinformation. They do not say there is no evidence whatsoever.
When the media fails to look for or disseminate proof it will never become publicly available.
The point of the inquiry is to make public, information the DOJ redacted from a variety of sources or is purposely withholding from scrutiny.
Si. I just find the “There’s no proof!” mantra hilariously short sighted. And hilarious. I guess the media have lost sight of the meaning of “investigation.” They’ve certainly forgotten their self-vaunted claim to be invaluable for doing “investigative journalism.” Is Sam Donaldson still alive? What estate are the media? Assholes.
Sam Donaldson is still alive. He was born seven years before the Germans bombed Dresden.
Odd because Sam was brain-dead by about 1986.
But my God, he made a career out of being patently abrasive. When did “journalists” become sycophants? The current journalist behavior makes me long for Sam Donaldson. Who I couldn’t stand when he was in his prime. Just a speck of skepticism would be greatly appreciated.
Babylon Bee: “Journalists Anxiously Wait For Email From Biden Administration With Today’s Instructions.”
OB
It occurred to me that the White House requirement for direct proof of benefitting from pay to play would undercut federal forfeiture of assets the government believes were obtained through illicit activities. How can the government make the connection that a car used by a drug dealer was purchased using drug dollars without knowing exactly what dollars were used and how they were obtained.
Obviously, I am being sarcastic but the point is if Biden is living a lifestyle that cannot be attributed to or supported by his reported legal income then how can the feds apply lifestyle as evidence of criminal activity? If his reported income can support his lifestyle a forensic audit could easily serve as a defense.
Regarding the Dems’ and MSM’s feigned outrage… I wish we had a saying that best captures the dishonesty and hypocrisy in outrage; maybe something about a pot and a kettle, or something about glass houses … oh well
Jack,
I am not so convinced that this is necessarily an ethics train wreck…yet. I think it has extreme potential to get there, but the arguments for it are, in my opinion, valid so far.
First, we have strong suspicion that our current President, in as much as he is capable of anything, is participating in or covering up an influence peddling ring. This is certainly a worrisome thing to be having at our highest level of government and should be treated with a great deal of seriousness. However, the DOJ seems to have been overly politicized and thus appears to be protecting the Bidens rather than investigating them. Congress has asked for details and generally, the DOJ has done everything they can to avoid answering them. There may be good reason, but the appearance is awful and has the citizens losing faith in this government. As the executive branch of our government appears to be violating their role, it is the job of the legislative branch to perform a check. An impeachment inquiry, while usually too overpowered, is actually the logical step at this point because then Congress has the power to check the executive branch in a case of seeming coverup of the influence peddling by the executive branch.
Second, this is merely an inquiry, not officially the impeachment yet. The corruption of the Presidency is a big deal, though perhaps not as much as the coverup of the influence peddling and weaponizing the Justice Department against political foes. If this isn’t worth an inquiry, what is? The idea that Biden may be beholden to China, Russia, or any other foreign power is certainly worth investigating and while we would hope that the media and the DOJ would do their own job, it has not been happening, necessitating taking this up the chain of command, or so we would say in a business. Assuming guilt, Biden will get away with this if no one does anything. That might not be too bad as a one time event, but I believe that if he does, we will suffer from the traditional version of scandal, an activity that encourages others to do wrong. If Biden can do it, why not the next guy (Republican or Democrat). We’ll not only see our politicians beholden to foreign powers, but increasingly more politicalization and weaponization of the Justice system. If that happens, America as we know it is done for. Of course, this being an inquiry, if Congress can find that this really is a nothingburger, they can stop where they are and say that in this case, the smoke did not indicate fire. They stop this whole thing, having done due diligence, protecting this government from more corruption, and potentially calming the electorate.
Finally, if they find a smoking gun, it is possible that this will allow the Democrats the chance to step back and reorganize themselves. If Biden is impeached for real cause, the Democrats can remove him and put someone else in the big slot. Depending on what is found, if Kamala can be found to have participated in illegal activity, they can write her off too. Indeed, that may be where the Democrats could LIKE to be. Certainly, one must wonder about her influence peddling given that she is in the number two spot with the brains of a jellyfish, the public speaking skills of a first grader, and the charisma of day old roadkill. Did she bribe her way to the spot? If so, you can clean the field for whomever the Democrats can find that isn’t a race to the bottom. Even without that, maybe we can end this game of chicken by putting a decent candidate in. I will admit that I cannot think of a Democrat that I can support, but if the Democrat isn’t too awful, perhaps I’ll write in a third party instead of hate voting.
This has great potential to be misused and become an ethics train wreck. The cynic in me thinks it will probably go that route. However, I think calling it a train wreck is premature. Let it ride on its potential merits until we see it get corrupted.
Turley notwithstanding: the chances now of having a bi-partisan impeachment are zero, and if an impeachment isn’t bi-partisan, then it’s not what the Founders intended.(Remember, they didn’t want political parties either, but couldn’t stop them.) If one wants to trace the ruination of impeachment to the Clinton debacle, I wouldn’t argue: Democrats wouldn’t even let there be a trial, as the Constitution directed.
So the grounds for impeachment don’t matter. The process has no legitimacy in the public’s mind. As a law professor and Constitutional scholar, Turley can be forgiven for missing that.
People talk about polarization and lies and how everyone should just stop doing x, y and z and everything would be happiness and rainbows, but the real problem is that our culture is shattered into a million pieces. Humans need common culture to have civilization, empathy, communication and basic understanding of one another. Western culture has been beaten to death with a million Marxist sledgehammers, and there isn’t enough super glue left in the world to hold it together anymore. When a culture is shattered, the only possible outcome is tribalism and war. Destroying common understanding destroys common understanding. Different tribes no longer understand each other on a fundamental level.
One tribe says there are infinite genders and another says there are two.
One tribe says merit is a good way to judge people and another says superficial physical characteristics is the best way to judge people.
One tribe says there is no such thing as private property and the other says there is.
These are not reconcilable differences. Especially when there is an elite class fomenting war between the tribes for their own personal gain and deliberately making reality impossible to see via institutional corruption. People need a framework for understanding the world, and when the world becomes a fog of war, they cling harder and harder to the worldview they understand to try and tell reality from delusion. People literally cannot alter their worldview at this point because that would render the world around them a slippery mess of chaos and hallucination. People cannot tell what is real and what isn’t anymore.
The Republicans always miss the boat. They should frame the impeachment inquiry (it’s an “inquiry”, not an “impeachment”) as an effort to clear the president of the news abroad that he is a criminal. We have to clear “our” (ie US) president of these allegations because, if true, we’d have to replace him, and responsible democratic senators (there must be some) would have to agree, much as Republican senators did during the Nixon fiasco. The argument that there is no evidence, frequently used in the media and by the Democrats, is a canard. There is never any evidence if you don’t look for it. You can say this is naive, but it’s not. I’m as cynical as all get out. But still, you do the right thing for the right reason whenever you can and whatever it is. Yes, it certainly could devolve into a tit for tat and probably will. Impeachment is just a tool, and you can’t abandon it because it was once misused. Joe killed Bill with a hammer, so let’s ban haters. Oops, that gets off into a different morass.
Exactly. No need to call it an impeachment inquiry. Sheesh, Congress is always conducting hearings about anything and everything. Why can’t it just be a Congressional investigation? By the House Foreign Affairs Committee? Hunter was certainly conducting all sorts of foreign (and domestic) affairs.
My understanding is that by defining it as an impeachment inquiry, they are on stronger legal grounds to force information and documents out of DOJ and other government agencies. The House committees have been asking to stuff from the agencies and the agencies have been ignoring them. Indeed that may be part of the reason Garland ended up appointing a special prosecutor — they can use the ‘current investigation’ excuse to continue stonewalling Congress.
I wouldn’t think the president could be impeached for what he did as vice-president 7 or 9 years ago. I think they would have to show that he is currently being influenced by foreign actors. That’ll be a heavy lift.
hammers not haters
Just a side bar here. If Biden is impeached and convicted, then Kamala Harris becomes POTUS. Frying pan to fire, I think. No body seems to be considering this.
Same administration. Different sock puppet. It would be a step in the right direction.
They don’t have to, because he will never be convicted.
If the standard is direct evidence for something to be true and without it it is false then
There is no direct evidence that:
Systemic racism exists;
Whites by virtue of skin tone are privileged; and,
Climate change is anthropogenic in causation.
Every time these three statements are made we should state there is no direct evidence for these claims.