The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, already deep into its investigation of the Biden family’s corrupt business practices, has run smack into an investigative brick wall – the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has records the committee needs to further its investigation, and NARA is refusing to turn them over. Lawsuits are on the horizon. The opening of an impeachment inquiry – and the superior authority that grants committees investigating a president for possible impeachable offenses – is necessary to allow the committee to pursue its leads properly.
That’s another way of saying it’s time for the House to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy understands this.
On Sunday, speaking on FOX News, McCarthy said, in reference to the ongoing investigation of the Biden family’s corruption, that “it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry.”
McCarthy further explained why: “And just so your viewers understand what that means, that provides Congress the apex of legal power to get all the information they need … “
The records in question are the 5,400 records held by NARA that in which then-Vice President Joe Biden used aliases for email and other communications. Biden, it turns out, used three different email aliases while serving as vice president, and House investigators are seeking access to these emails and other records as they investigate his relationship to his son’s criminal activities.
White House records indicate that when it came to email communications, Biden hid behind the name “Robert L. Peters” while serving as vice president. He also used “Robin Ware” and “JRB Ware” as pseudonyms.
The Washington Times reported in July that “A White House scheduling email sent to then-Vice President Joseph. R. Biden ahead of a call with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was also sent to his son Hunter who was serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm looking to escape a corruption probe.”
The email was sent to then-Vice President Biden at his “Robert L. Peters” email alias. The email also copied to his son. Why Hunter would be copied on a scheduling email that noted his father would be calling the Ukrainian president has not been explained. But it puts the lie to any claim that there was a “wall of separation” between Joe and his son Hunter’s business activities.
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee wants to know what else is in those 5,400 records? Committee investigators want to know if Biden used alias email accounts to hide his involvement in Hunter’s business affairs.
NARA is refusing to turn over the records without permission from Biden and his former boss, President Barack Obama. The committee may have to sue to get access to the records.
And that’s where an impeachment inquiry comes in.
The simple act of opening an impeachment inquiry would strengthen the House’s hand in its upcoming battle with the Biden Administration over documents and witness appearances.
A memo prepared by the staff of the House Judiciary Committee in April 1974 – as the committee was investigating the activities and conduct of President Richard Nixon and his colleagues in the Watergate affair, and considering impeachment – explains why: “Indeed, the Supreme Court has contrasted the broad scope of the inquiry power of the House in impeachment proceedings with its more confined scope in legislative investigations. From the beginning of the Federal Government, Presidents have stated that in an impeachment inquiry the Executive Branch could be required to produce papers that it might withhold in a legislative investigation.”
In other words, impeachment proceedings themselves could significantly change the process members of Congress can use to obtain information, the kind of material the committee could obtain, and the speed at which the committee would be likely to obtain it.
If the Biden Administration continues to stonewall the House’s legitimate investigative requests, an impeachment inquiry is not only the answer, it is the actual duty of the House – because if this House fails to respond to an executive branch stonewalling it by overcoming the stonewall with impeachment, this House will have set a precedent that binds all future Congresses in their relations with all future presidents, permanently changing the balance of power between the two branches of government and relegating the Congress to a subservient position.
McCarthy is right. It’s time to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.