After everything Joe Biden has done to America, from his illegal alien border invasion to his divisive rhetoric to run-away prices at the grocery store, wouldn't it be something if he led himself into impeachment by "outrageously spinning" his lies about Special Counsel Hur raising the death of his son, Beau?
As George Washington law professor and columnist Jonathan Turley argues, it's a distinct possibility.
As Turley explained in a Friday column, the key to impeachment could be "the use of White House staff to carry out an alleged disinformation campaign can raise alleged violations of the public trust and misuse of federal staff and resources." (More, later in the article.)
"Such allegations have been included in past articles of impeachment," Turley continued, which he explained "would be most serious in relation to the ongoing investigation into influence peddling by the Biden family."
Let's first back up the bus a bit.
As my colleague Sister Toldjah reported on Wednesday, Biden's assertion that it was Hur who raised the question about the year of Beau Biden's death was a lie — er, maybe Joe was just confused. Anyway, here's what really happened:
Hur never asked that question, according to two people familiar with Hur’s five-hour interview with the president over two days last October. It was the president, not Hur or his team, who first introduced Beau Biden’s death, they said.
Biden raised his son’s death after being asked about his workflow at a Virginia rental home from 2016 to 2018, the sources said, when a ghostwriter was helping him write a memoir about losing Beau to brain cancer in 2015. Investigators had a 2017 recording showing that Biden had told the ghostwriter he had found “classified stuff” in that home, the report says.
Biden began trying to recall that period by discussing what else was happening in his life, and it was at that point in the interview that he appeared confused about when Beau had died, the sources said. Biden got the date — May 30 — correct, but not the year.
Oops.
The thing is, the above critical facts could be far more than just a simple "oops" for Biden. Here's more from Turley:
If true, this isn’t something the White House can simply fix with a few rewrites in brackets. The corrected version would read: “How in the hell dare [I] raise that? Frankly, when [I raised] the question, I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
It would make referencing recent conversations with dead foreign leaders look like moments of clarity. While we await the spin, the report indicates the president is either mentally diminished or openly deceptive in such moments.
The latter seems more likely. Biden clearly went to the podium intending to make this attack on Hur.
That means his staff probably vetted it.
In other words, Biden's use of the White House staff could be critical, Turley argues.
The use of the White House to spread false claims about these investigations is a highly precarious practice. It can be the thing that impeachments are made of. Ian Sams, spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, has been especially aggressive in attacking critics of the President and spinning these reports. He was recently confronted about false claims in connection to the Hur report.
The use of White House staff to carry out an alleged disinformation campaign can raise alleged violations of the public trust and misuse of federal staff and resources. Such allegations have been included in past articles of impeachment and would be most serious in relation to the ongoing investigation into influence peddling by the Biden family.
In the most recent controversy, the aggressive effort of the White House Counsel’s office to shape the coverage led to a rare rebuke from the White House Correspondents Association.
The coordinated campaign to spin Biden's lies about Beau could "bootstrap earlier alleged violations," Turley wrote.
Using federal personnel like Sams to spread or repeat false claims could make such allegations “evergreen” in tying them to contemporary ‘in-office” conduct.
"In other words," Turley believes, "the White House has to be careful that the effort to spin out of scandal only results in spinning into an impeachment."
The Bottom Line
I have the utmost respect for Jonathan Turley, both for his brilliant legal mind and also his objectivity regardless of politics. That said, the chances of Joe Biden being impeached, much less convicted in a Senate trial lie somewhere near negative-zero.
Related:
Report: Things Are About to Get Much Worse for Joe Biden As Robert Hur Plans His Next Move
Jill Biden's Statement on the Hur Report Is a Shameless One for the Books by Mentioning Beau
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