Tipsheet

'Wicked Twist': Indictment Against Trump Could Come Back to Bite Joe Biden

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  August 08, 2023 7:00 PM

President Joe Biden may be weaponizing his Department of Justice (DOJ) against former and potentially future President Donald Trump, but that doesn't mean he'll come out unscathed with regards to the indictments brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Law professor Jonathan Turley offered a warning for the president in his opinion piece for The Messenger on Monday. 

Turley begins with thoughtful summary of the case against Trump and how it stands on such shaky ground due to First Amendment protections, as well as prior cases that protect political lies. He also references reporting last week from CNN which describes this indictment as "personal" for Biden.

"The Justice Department acknowledges that the Constitution protects false statements made in political campaigns. Yet it maintains that Trump can be convicted for lying because he really did not believe what he said," Turley mentions. "Criminalizing lies in campaigns because of the spread of disinformation or disorder is a slippery slope that vests unprecedented power in the Justice Department," he later writes. 

There could be that "wicked twist" for Biden when it comes to an impeachment inquiry, since he has lied so thoroughly, including and especially when it comes to his incessant denials, including and especially from the 2020 campaign, that he was involved in son Hunter's shady business deals. 

"That is why guilt by implication or association, as employed by special counsel Smith against Trump, could be a dangerous legal standard for Joe Biden," Turley wrote with regards to the denials. 

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Not only has the White House, and even Biden himself, continued to lie about Hunter now that he's taken office, but the narrative has changed as well. Initially we were told that the president hadn't even spoken to his son about his business dealings, now we're told that he wasn't involved. 

White House Karine Jean-Pierre meanwhile denies that the narrative has changed. 

The White House still continues to stick to its stubborn talking points, even as their narrative falls apart. This comes even as Devon Archer, the former business associate of Hunter, testified last week that then Vice President Joe Biden was not only involved with his son, but he was very much "the brand," speaking to many different interactions with corrupt individuals as well. 

Turley made many of the same points while speaking to Fox News last Monday after Archer gave his testimony to the House Oversight Committee, which released takeaways and later the transcript. 

"Well, what was the brand," Turley wondered to Fox News at the time, also asking "why did [Joe Biden] lie?"

In his closing, Turley once more brings up those lies, as a warning to Biden:

Biden surely knew his denials of knowledge and interactions were untrue, even as his aides misinformed the public and as congressional and federal investigations occurred.

Now, according to special counsel Smith, such knowing lies can be criminal matters, at least in the case of Donald Trump. For Congress, it could also trigger impeachment inquiries in the case of Joe Biden — and that would make this very personal indeed.

The idea described by Turley is certainly an interesting one worth exploring. Then again, we need Republicans to actually act when it comes to that impeachment inquiry.

Even if Biden is almost certainly safe in the Democratically-controlled Senate, impeachment still needs to happen, especially given the president's undeniable corruption. Kurt Schlichter called impeachment in "inevitable" in a column last month, noting that the "GOP simply cannot explain to its base how it turned over this rock o' graft and ignored the wriggling worms underneath."

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) last month discussed the possibility of an impeachment inquiry, especially if financial information is withheld about the Biden family, but now Congress is in recess. A CNN report from earlier on Tuesday indicated that the impeachment inquiry could happen in the fall.