Jonathan Turley isn’t a hard-core conservative. He’s reasonably liberal to libertarian-ish in his politics, but that’s not the point. He calls it as he sees it regardless of party affiliation, which has led to lefty furor over his past legal analyses on Trump’s impeachment and other issues.
Alan Dershowitz is another liberal attorney who has delivered brutal assessments of Democrats’ impeachment pushes against Donald Trump. Both men have defended due process and the rule of law over partisan whining, which has made them de facto MAGA supporters, which is absurd. Turley offered ten reasons why the Biden impeachment inquiry is legitimate on his blog:
I have been asked about my reference to the ten facts or developments that led to my conclusion that an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Biden is now warranted. Here are those ten reasons fro my written testimony. https://t.co/p4p8XaylwC
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) September 30, 2023
Hunter Biden and his associates were running a classic influence peddling operation using Joe Biden as what Devon Archer called “the Brand.” While this was described as an “illusion of access,” millions were generated for the Bidens from some of the most corrupt figures in the world, including associates who were later accused of or convicted of public corruption.
Some of the Biden clients pushed for changes impacting United States foreign policy and relations, including help in dealing with Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin investigating corruption.
President Biden has made false claims about his knowledge of these dealings repeatedly in the past, including insisting that he had no knowledge of Hunter’s foreign dealings which Archer has declared “patently false.” The Washington Post and other media outlets have also declared the President’s insistence that his family did not take money from China as false.
The President had been aware for years that Hunter Biden and his uncle James were accused of influence peddling, including an audiotape of the President acknowledging a New York Times investigation as a threat to Hunter. President Biden was repeatedly called into meetings with these foreign clients and was put on speakerphone. He also met these clients and foreign figures at dinners and meetings.
Emails and other communications show Hunter repeatedly invoking his father to secure payments from foreign sources and, in one such message, he threatens a Chinese figure that his father is sitting next to him to coerce a large transfer of money.
A trusted FBI source recounted a direct claim of a corrupt Ukrainian businessman that he paid a “bribe” to Joe Biden through intermediaries.
Hunter Biden reportedly claimed that he had to give half of his earnings to his father and other emails state that intermingled accounts were used to pay bills for both men, including a possible credit account that Hunter used to allegedly pay prostitutes.
At least two transfers of funds to Hunter Biden in 2019 from a Chinese source listed the President’s home in Delaware where Hunter sometimes lived and conducted business.
Some of the deals negotiated by Hunter involved potential benefits for his father, including office space in Washington. At least nine Biden family members reportedly received money from these foreign transfers, including grandchildren. For Hunter Biden, this included not just significant money transfers but gifts like an expensive diamond and a luxury car.
He also penned an op-ed outlining why House Republicans are well within their duties to investigate these matters. The investigation does have popular support, but as he noted, we don’t impeach presidents based on mob mentality. I could argue that Democrats kowtowed to their base with Trump, with some members being very explicit that impeachment was a 2018 midterm promise.
But he was answering something hurled at him from former Trump White House official and Breitbart executive Steve Bannon. Mr. Bannon’s chief criticism was that House Republicans didn’t have an expert witness ready to declare Biden guilty. Turley has made compelling arguments that Hunter Biden is guilty of influence peddling, but the bank and phone records submitted to connect the dots to his father have yet to be made. That’s why Democrats are now pounding the ‘no evidence’ talking points. Turley’s op-ed was lengthy but thorough in explaining the nuances of this process while offering a warning that the GOP shouldn’t engage in snap impeachments, even though they have a right to do so, thanks to Democrats:
… Steve Bannon…went on social media to criticize House Republicans for not selecting someone who would testify, at the very start of an inquiry, that the case already was made for actual articles of impeachment.
Bannon suggested that I should have been placed on the "maybe list" if I was not willing to say that the committee had the basis to vote out articles of impeachment on the first day of inquiry. That, however, would be akin to calling a special grand jury and demanding an indictment before any witnesses or evidence are presented.
Bannon's criticism is emblematic of much of what I cautioned against in my testimony. I implored the Republicans not to replicate the last two impeachments, which I believe did considerable damage to this constitutional process.
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) could have launched an impeachment inquiry at any point in the prior year. He waited until the committees had acquired bank and other records showing millions of dollars flowing to Biden family members and communications from Hunter and others referencing access to Joe Biden for foreign clients.
That is how an impeachment inquiry should begin. The House now has credible, compelling evidence that the president may have committed high crimes and misdemeanors. It is substantive case for an impeachment inquiry rather than just another snap judgment.
So why not just declare the president guilty? Because we do not know.
This is a constitutional process, not just some trash-talking cable show (although, admittedly, it was hard to tell at moments in the hearing).
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I have been critical of the Hunter Biden team in replicating the Bannon model by refusing to supply information to Congress. Now that obstruction is likely to be addressed quickly by the House. As I told the committee yesterday, "the Constitution is now on your side, the calendar is not." They will likely move quickly in pursuing critical linkages to the president.
In reality, my views on impeachment were well-known and public before my testimony. There was no lack of what Bannon referenced as staff work. The House Republicans want to return to regular order on impeachments and were not calling the first hearing of an impeachment inquiry to declare impeachment articles.
Indeed, my analysis was consistent with the testimony that I gave as an expert witness in both the Clinton and the Trump impeachments. The best practices that I have laid out would benefit President Biden — just as they would have benefited President Trump if followed. That is as it should be. As I said in all three impeachment hearings, a sitting president warrants basic presumptions and protections in this constitutional process.
Frankly, Steve Bannon is right about one thing: I was appropriately on the "maybe list" — but not in the sense that he meant it. President Biden may be guilty of impeachable conduct, but that constitutional finding must be based on evidence, not impulse.
I think there’s enough to impeach Joe Biden, but I’m not an attorney. Despite my impulse to fix bayonets and charge across No Man’s Land, I also understand the delicate nature of these matters. Democrats tried to impeach Trump twice with zero evidence, and it burned them. With Biden, the GOP can have a clean shot, with damning evidence and popular support, but they have to move slowly. I get it; the wheels of justice turn that way, and that’s with most aspects of law.
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