There's Plenty of Evidence of Corruption Around Biden

 Absolutely No Evidence

"House Speaker Kevin McCarthy backed an inquiry despite no evidence of Biden's wrongdoing," Vox's Li Zhou insisted last week. " U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber is backing an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite no clear evidence of wrongdoing by the president," sniffed the Duluth News Tribune's Jimmy Lovrien. " Mr. Biden repeatedly said he had 'never discussed' and had 'never spoken to' Hunter about his business dealings, and Republicans have produced no evidence that he was ever briefed on specific transactions or deals," according to Luke Broadwater of The New York Times. You'll note how "no evidence" morphs into "no clear evidence" about "specific transactions"—those goal posts must be mounted on wheels. But a lot of the same outlets saying there's no evidence spend a lot of ink disputing the persuasiveness of evidence they tell us doesn't exist.

The Evidence Doesn't Show What You Think It Shows, Anyway

"As for the $20 million in payments," The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler noted of money found by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability to have been paid by foreign sources to the Bidens through a network of companies controlled by members of the family, "only about $7 million can be directly attributed to Biden family members, mostly Hunter, while the rest went to 'associates. '…No evidence has emerged that any of these funds can be traced to Joe Biden himself." But that story has become harder to sustain. " Hunter Biden's former business partner, Devon Archer, revealed in congressional testimony on July 31 that Hunter Biden put his father on speakerphone to exchange pleasantries with Hunter Biden's foreign business associates on about 20 occasions over a 10-year period," acknowledges The Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org. " Maybe Joe Biden really enjoyed discussing rainfall with foreign bigwigs. After all, concerns that Hunter acts as a middleman for his father in unsavory dealings date back many years. "

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Pseudonyms

If we're having difficulty finding cash flowing directly to Joe from Hunter's efforts to leverage his father's political position, that may have something to do with the thousands of emails the elder Biden hid behind pseudonymous accounts while vice president, in defiance of transparency standards. " Allegations that the Biden administration interfered in the investigation of Hunter also add to the impression that something isn't right. " I am here to tell you that the Delaware USAO [United States Attorney's Office] and Department of Justice (DOJ) handling of the Hunter Biden tax investigation was very different from any other case in my 14 years at the IRS," Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley told the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability in July. " At every stage decisions were made that benefited the subject of the investigation," Shapley added. With regard to information found on Hunter Biden's laptop, "Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf told us prosecutors had decided to conceal some evidence from the investigators."

Is all of this enough to impeach the president? I'd certainly say so—though the Democratic majority in the Senate is unlikely to convict. Impeachment proceedings will end up being political theater, like those against then-President Donald Trump. But public opinion doesn't require the same standard of proof. " A 55% majority of the public says the president has acted inappropriately regarding the investigation into Hunter Biden over potential crimes, while 44% say that he has acted appropriately."

https://reason.com/2023/09/18/theres-plenty-of-evidence-of-corruption-around-biden/