I don’t think an “inquiry” has any Constitutional or House rules standards. If the Speaker wants an inquiry they can direct relevant committees to do so. The only reason why a vote came up was because McCarthy had said there would need to be a vote but then changed his mind and unilaterally declared one.
There is a hilariously ironic teaching point here for Commodore and friends as they struggle through all this. You could hire someone, say....someone like an ex counter intelligence agent. This person could collect all of these little rumors, even if they are salacious and unverified, and package them into something...maybe like....a dossier. They could then hand it off investigative bodies. And then, for the next ten years, they could watch it become the dumbest ever talking point by a group of idiots who have no idea what is going on.
Not sure an agency of the executive branch can make rules governing the procedures of the elected Congress.
Another interesting solution! You, Sir, are a man of ideas! Many of the politicians wouldn't lose an IQ point.
I believe the implication is that the executive branch will not cooperate, essentially saying "try to subpoena me, I won't comply." However, I think the administration should cooperate with Congress' subpoena power. While I personally view the impeachment inquiry as invalid, the executive branch should not simply blatantly ignore subpoenas from Congress, as doing so weakens the system of checks and balances. The subpoena authority of Congress should be respected by the executive, even during contentious investigations. Ignoring subpoenas could set a dangerous precedent that undermines Congressional oversight. Unfortunately, the Trump administration did exactly that by ignoring subpoenas on almost everything, and so that damaging precedent has already been set. The Biden administration could attempt to restore respect for Congressional subpoena power, and from what I have seen so far, I expect they will at least try to do so. However, I won't be too critical of them if they fail to reverse the precedent - once a norm is broken, it is difficult to restore.
i dont know if it warrants a new thread, but i was wondering about the hunter biden indictment. he is being charged with lying on his application to buy a gun about drug use. thats the only charge, right? or is there something else? and that carries a 10 year sentence? the taxpayer is going to spend tens of thousands of dollars to jail someone for that??? if they went after everyone who did that there would be millions of people being locked up. joe rogan is a gun owner who smokes pot on his show (in texas, where mar1juana is illegal). are they going after him too and if not, why?
The charges filed against Hunter Biden are a travesty Just one year before Hunter Biden scribbled his name on that Form 4473, the General Accounting Office carried out a review of how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was dealing with those who lied when applying for a firearm. In that year, 112,090 were denied a gun during the application process for submitting “falsified information.” Of those, 12,710 were referred to the ATF for further investigation. And of those, the total number actually prosecuted was … 12. That’s just 0.01% of those whose forms were rejected for providing false information. What’s more, the cases were referred for prosecution “when aggravating circumstances exist, such as violent felonies or multiple serious offenses over a short period of time.” None of those circumstances apply to Hunter Biden. But it’s worse than those numbers might indicate. Hunter Biden was not caught lying on his form during his application. He wasn’t really caught at all. The only reason that prosecutors know about his addiction to cocaine during this period is that Hunter Biden wrote about his struggles with addiction in a 2021 memoir. So he’s being retroactively prosecuted for being honest about the difficulties he experienced and being forthright about his failures. Biden wasn’t one of 112,090 who were singled out as lying on his form. He was one of 27 million who filled out that form and went on. Now the Department of Justice is backing up five years to charge Hunter Biden with something—for the purposes of charging Hunter Biden with something. The recommendation of that GAO review in 2017 was that the ATF was spending too much time investigating falsified forms since follow-up prosecutions were so rare. Instead, the GAO recommended that the agency concentrate on keeping track of false information and making information about rejected forms available to local law enforcement. The DOJ concurred with GAO's recommendation. Following the recommendations of the GAO, the number of cases referred for investigation in the year Hunter Biden made his purchase was greatly reduced, from 12,710 to just 478 referrals. That’s 0.002% of those who applied for a gun that year. But wait. It gets worse. When The Washington Post took a look at this issue last year, they did so because the ATF and DOJ were being bombarded with tweets insisting that Hunter Biden be charged. The controversy prompted us to request statistics from the Justice Department to determine whether someone falsely filling out the form faced much of a risk of prosecution. It took months to obtain the data. The answer, it turns out, is no.According to the Post, most of the cases prosecuted for lying on the form “concerned obvious instances of ‘straw buyers’” where someone was sent into a store to buy a gun for someone else who couldn’t legally purchase a gun, because they had already been convicted of a violent crime. Which seems like exactly the sort of thing the law was designed to catch in the first place. But of all the statistics that show just how selective “justice” is being in the case of Hunter Biden, the results of a Freedom of Information request sent to Delaware for the year in which the purchase was made may be the most damning. The provided information shows that in fiscal year 2019, only three Form 4473 cases were referred for prosecution in Delaware. The U.S. attorney for Delaware—that would be David Weiss, the same U.S. attorney in charge of the investigation into Hunter Biden—opted to prosecute none of these cases. None. Confronted with three other cases involving the exact same charge in the same state, in the same year, Weiss decided to file no charges. But Hunter Biden is getting three charges and the possibility of 25 years. That really is some very special justice.
I am not sure why Weiss was ready to do probation and a fine a few months ago but now he sees it worth of charges, I am all for him doing time if he did a crime but this is weak sauce. I was listening to his lawyer and they will refute the timeline when the document was signed as to his rehab. I think it will be tough to prove he was addicted at the time he signed it. There also may be some IRS charges coming as the statue of limitations is about to expire on those, he was late paying his taxes.
I hear that the Deep State hangs you from the gallows if you are late paying your taxes. Donald Trump just shat his breeches.
He was obviously trying to pull a fast one to get some charges in now so he can say it wasn’t a waste of time, and also continue investigating which was the sticking point for Bidens lawyers. Nobody is taking a plea deal if the prosecutor can just keep on probing. I think he wanted to keep the probe open because he was scared that impeachment would find something after he shut the file closed. Weiss is terrified of the Fascists in the House GOP. It’s just that simple.
