We broke down some of the new national polling earlier, but there's another data point that I wanted to address separately. We've covered the mounting evidence in the Biden family enrichment scandal quite extensively. We've exposed the president's provable dishonesty and shifting story. We've substantively challenged the emerging White House line that the president and his son are not "in business" together. We've cast deserved skepticism on the actions of Special Counsel Weiss, based on what we've learned about how his ostensible 'prosecution' has been conducted. And we've dismantled Democrats' ubiquitous 'no evidence' talking point, largely parroted by the media. The denialist spin does not appear to be working.
A recent CNN poll showed a significant majority -- 61 percent -- of voters "think that Biden had at least some involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, with 42% saying they think he acted illegally, and 18% saying that his actions were unethical but not illegal." The latest survey finds also suggest the damage control is failing. Recall that the White House instructed the media to assail House Republicans' impeachment inquiry as an unserious witch hunt, unmoored to any evidence -- and many journalists eagerly did precisely what was demanded of them by their fellow partisans. Despite those efforts, respondents to the WaPo/ABC poll view the inquiry as reasonable and accountability-minded:
Looolol. They asked about impeachment inquiry. BROADLY POPULAR: “On this question, 58 percent of Americans say Biden is being held accountable under the law like any other president while 32 percent say he is being unfairly victimized by political opponents.” https://t.co/WqUvypTYW1
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) September 24, 2023
That 58 percent figure is awfully close to CNN's 61 percent. And even if one wants to dismiss the WaPo/ABC poll as a red-tinted outlier (we analyzed some of those points in our previous post), NBC's survey asked about voter attitudes on a number of fronts, and "Biden possible awareness of/involvement in son Hunter’s business dealings/alleged wrongdoing" was one of them, as summarized by Steve Kornacki. Lo and behold...60 percent of respondents called it a concern, reflecting a very consistent ballpark number. The White House/'news' media line isn't succeeding, but they're still trying:
Meanwhile, in the third to last paragraph… https://t.co/VKBrPOi8TS pic.twitter.com/Ilq3vS6HDD
— Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) September 22, 2023
On Friday, we told you about a third IRS official (referenced in Redfern's response) who's confirmed key elements of whistleblower Gary Shapley's sworn testimony before Congress. There's a fourth:
A fourth IRS official has told Congress about roadblocks that now-special counsel David Weiss faced last year in attempting to bring charges against Hunter Biden outside his district in Delaware. Darrell Waldon, the former IRS special agent in charge of the agency’s Washington field office, told the House Ways and Means Committee in a closed-door interview earlier this month about a number of challenges he witnessed during his two years on the case, according to a transcript of the interview obtained by the Washington Examiner. Waldon also discussed the IRS’s decision to remove a whistleblower, Gary Shapley, and the rest of Shapley’s IRS investigative team from the Hunter Biden investigation after Weiss stated he was no longer on speaking terms with Shapley.
“Mr. Weiss went to the U.S. Attorney's Office — I can't recall the dates — and they did not agree to prosecute the case in D.C.,” Waldon, who in February took another job within the IRS that moved him away from the Hunter Biden case, said...“I'm aware that it was presented to the District of Columbia and, at some point, the Central District of California, I believe,” he testified...Although Waldon did not dispute the accuracy of notes that Shapley sent in an email shortly after the meeting, he did disagree with Shapley’s description of the meeting as contentious, and he said he did not independently recall some of the issues Shapley had included in his notes.
I suppose the final sentence in that except is what the White House would claim to represent Waldron "disputing" Shapley's testimony, which is such weak sauce. I included this in last week's post, too, but I'll again leave you with my conversation with Shapley's attorney, which is granular and worthwhile:
Tristan Leavitt (@tristanleavitt) on Hunter Biden’s IRS Lawsuit: “Total Smear Job”https://t.co/jMvPZhUFJL
— The Guy Benson Show (@GuyBensonShow) September 20, 2023
This is also a very useful resource on the subject, via Byron York:
An extremely valuable timeline of the Hunter Biden investigation. Worth studying and bookmarking; will be useful in future. From @EMPOWR_us: https://t.co/BuIZ1sAmYy
— Byron York (@ByronYork) September 18, 2023
