Hunter Biden gives House Republicans the rebuttal they didn't want

[brooklynite]

Hunter Biden’s appearance in front of investigators and members of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees unfolded a bit like a Bruce Lee movie.

Republican legislators and interviewers challenging the president’s son on the House majority’s behalf would throw out an allegation, often one that’s been worn smooth after tumbling around in the right-wing media universe for the past year or two. And Biden would invariably swat it away, stripping off the layers of innuendo that had been applied by Donald Trump and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) or Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) or any of myriad Fox News commentators.

This included epic battles against well-known foes, like an exchange between Hunter Biden and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) or repeated, extended back-and-forths with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). But at no point was a question left unanswered — including through an invocation of the Fifth Amendment — or, to an objective observer, left answered with obvious incompletion.

The discussion was centered on the Republican effort in the ongoing impeachment inquiry to demonstrate that President Biden had benefited financially from Hunter Biden’s business endeavors — and, they hoped, that the elder Biden had used his position as vice president to that end. They were unsuccessful in making that case from the hearing’s first moments.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/29/hunter-biden-transcript-impeachment-inquiry/

It says something that Republicans haven't tried to frame the hearing as having a "smoking gun".

[Mister Ed]

1. A hearty kick and rec. The linked op-ed should be read in full. n/t

[Hekate]

2. KnR!

[Wounded Bear]

3. The gun may be smoking, but it's shooting blanks...nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Oh, it's smoking, but it's the Elmer Fudd end that is smoking. . . . nt

[wiggs]

4. I can't stop readying the transcript of the deposition. Fascinating. Hunter is sharp and his education and

work history should be discussed more because the narrative of him being 'UNQUALIFIED' to sit on a board seems silly in accurate context.

[dsc]

5. No wonder they refused to interview him in public

[Qutzupalotl]

6. Gift link to article for anyone who needs it:

https://wapo.st/3Th5qIJ

[Qutzupalotl]

7. One quibble with the op ed:

Last edited Fri Mar 1, 2024, 02:57 AM - Edit history (1)

The email referenced in this paragraph is on unverifiable sectors of the alleged laptop:

That may be, but it has also been demonstrated that he at times specifically sought to invoke his father, including in a text message in which he falsely implied that his father was sitting beside him. (He said he was probably intoxicated when it was sent and that he was “more embarrassed of this text message, if it actually did come from me, than any text message I’ve ever sent.”)

He doesn't remember writing it. I don't think he did. I think this was part of Russia's operation as filtered through Giuliani.

[usonian]

9. The GOP legislators' understanding of business doesn't extend beyond cronyism, nepotism, money laundering and grift.

A reflection of their own careers.