Why is Trump charged w. "obstruction" when it is creepy Joe who instigated his son to defy a Cong. subpoena--hypocrisy?--NO, it's comedic, suckers

Apollonian

Apollonian

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Joe Biden Apparently Helped Hunter Defy A Subpoena, So Why Is Trump The One Charged With Obstructing Justice?​

Link: https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/0...ump-the-one-charged-with-obstructing-justice/

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND
JANUARY 03, 2024
5 MIN READ
Joe Biden with flags behind him

IMAGE CREDIT OLIVER CONTRERAS/THE WHITE HOUSE/FLICKR
The level of projection at play with this administration would be hilarious if it weren’t so damaging to our country.
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Did Joe Biden counsel his son to defy a congressional subpoena? The House Oversight and Judiciary Committee chairs want to know as part of their impeachment inquiry because if the president colluded with Hunter Biden over the latter’s refusal to appear for questioning, Joe Biden committed the crime of obstruction of justice. Yet, ironically, it is Donald Trump charged with criminal obstruction of justice even though the former president did nothing to keep evidence or witnesses from Congress.​

Last Wednesday, Rep. James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee Chair, dispatched a letter to the White House counsel concerning the president’s apparent communications with his son regarding Hunter’s decision to defy a congressional subpoena. As the letter detailed, the House had subpoenaed Hunter Biden to appear for a Dec. 13, 2023, deposition as part of its impeachment inquiry. However, rather than appear for his deposition, Hunter Biden instead held a lengthy press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 13.

Later that day, when asked whether the president had watched Hunter’s performance, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Biden was “certainly familiar with what his son was going to say.” As the House’s letter noted, “Ms. Jean-Pierre’s statement suggests that the President had some amount of advanced knowledge that Mr. Biden would choose to defy two congressional subpoenas.”
“In light of Ms. Jean-Pierre’s statement,” the letter continued, “we are compelled to examine the involvement of the President in his son’s scheme to defy the Committees’ subpoenas.”
Comer and Jordan cited two federal criminal statutes, 18 U.S.C. § 1505 and 18 U.S.C. § 2(a), that President Biden potentially violated. Section 1505 is part of the federal criminal code that criminalizes “Obstruction of Justice” offenses, providing that “whoever corruptly … endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any investigation or inquiry is being had by … any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress,” is subject to a fine and imprisonment for up to five years. Section 2(a), for its part, creates criminal liability for anyone who, in the commission of a crime, “aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procedures.”
Based on the press secretary’s statement that President Biden was “certainly familiar with what his son was going to say,” to determine whether the president violated section 1505 or 2(a), Comer and Jordan requested from the White House any documents or communications exchanged by the Executive Office of the President and Hunter Biden and his legal team concerning the deposition of the president’s son.

It is unlikely the White House will comply with the House’s request for such documents. And if pushed on whether he discussed Hunter’s decision to ignore the subpoena, President Biden seems sure to rebuff the suggestion with the same force he exerted to deny ever discussing Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
Of course, the evidence is now overwhelming that Joe Biden not only spoke with Hunter about his business dealings but communicated regularly with his son’s business partners and met and spoke with foreigners who paid Hunter millions — with some of that money being directly traced to Joe Biden.
Adding obstruction of justice to the impeachment inquiry seems like chump change in comparison to charges of bribery and the selling of influence, but there is a delicious irony revealed by the House’s latest salvo: If Joe Biden colluded with his son to keep Hunter from complying with the congressional subpoena, that would actually constitute the crime of obstruction of justice, whereas Trump currently faces two criminal charges for obstruction of justice for conduct that doesn’t even appear to qualify as a crime.
As detailed Tuesday at The Federalist, Special Counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with violating two subsections of § 1512(c) — another section of the criminal chapter covering obstruction of justice. The special counsel’s charges seek to hold Trump criminally liable for the events of Jan. 6, 2021, claiming the former president’s conduct “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding,” namely the certification of the electoral vote.

Smith’s theory, however, ignores the framework of § 1512(c), which only criminalizes conduct that impairs in some way evidence for use in an official proceeding, such as the alteration, destruction, mutilation, or concealment of “a record, document, or other object…” When interpreting a similar “otherwise” catchall clause, the Supreme Court has held that “the statute covers only similar crimes.”
The Supreme Court, when it hears an appeal concerning the scope of § 1512(c) later this year, is extremely likely to similarly hold that federal statute only criminalizes conduct that impairs the availability of evidence for an official proceeding — something the special counsel does not claim Trump did on Jan. 6, 2021.
In that case, the bottom line will be that the Biden administration charged Trump with obstruction of justice for conduct that was not a crime, while Joe Biden may have engaged in conduct that actually qualified as such a crime if he collaborated with Hunter to ignore the congressional subpoena.
The level of projection at play with this administration would be hilarious if it weren’t so damn damaging to our country.
 
Cong.-man Comer lists the tasks to be done for depositions and information to then wrap up investigation and then impeachment of brain-dead creepy Joe

 

Jordan, Comer Launch New Probe Into Joe Biden After Another Discovery​

Photo of Martin Walsh Martin Walsh January 9, 2024
Getty Images

Link: https://conservativebrief.com/jordan-comer-80204/

Two Republican committee chairmen, James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio, have renewed their investigation into President Joe Biden, who allegedly may have attempted to hinder his son Hunter Biden’s cooperation with the House’s impeachment investigation.
An official White House statement suggested that President Joe Biden knew about Hunter’s plot to ignore congressional subpoenas in advance, which led to the investigation.
According to the statement, “In light of an official statement from the White House that President Biden was aware in advance that his son, Hunter Biden, would knowingly defy two congressional subpoenas, we are compelled to examine as part of our impeachment inquiry whether the President engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding of Congress.”
The letter requested:
Accordingly, and pursuant to the impeachment inquiry, please produce the following information for period January 20, 2021, to the present:
1. All documents and communications sent or received by employees of the Executive Office of the President regarding the deposition of Hunter Biden, including but not limited to communications with Hunter Biden, Winston & Strawn LLP, and Kevin Morris; and
2. All documents and communications sent or received by employees of the Executive Office of the President regarding President Biden’s statement about his family’s business associates on December 6, 2023. Please produce this information as soon as possible but no later than January 10, 2024.
“The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability (Oversight Committee) and the House Committee on the Judiciary (Judiciary Committee, and with the Oversight Committee, the Committees) are investigating whether sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment against President Biden for consideration by the full House. Along with House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, we set forth in a September 27, 2023 memorandum the evidence justifying the inquiry and the scope of this impeachment investigation.2 On December 13, 2023, the House of Representatives directed the Committees to continue this investigation,” the statement read.
“In light of an official statement from the White House that President Biden was aware in advance that his
son, Hunter Biden, would knowingly defy two congressional subpoenas, we are compelled to examine as part of our impeachment inquiry whether the President engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding of Congress,” the statement added.
The statement continued: “The Committees issued subpoenas to Hunter Biden for a deposition to be conducted on December 13, 2023.4 In correspondence with Mr. Biden’s attorney prior to the scheduled date of the depositions, the Committees addressed and rejected Mr. Biden’s justifications for not complying with the terms of the subpoenas, as well as Mr. Biden’s demand for special treatment from the Committees.”
The United States House of Representatives voted in December to formally authorize its investigation into President Joe Biden’s potential impeachment.
By a party-line vote of 221-212, the Republican-controlled chamber approved the investigation, which is looking into whether Biden improperly benefited from his 53-year-old son Hunter Biden’s international business dealings. Hunter Biden had earlier declined an invitation to testify behind closed doors.
Newly crowned House Speaker Mike Johnson recently spoke about the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, saying, “We have a responsibility to do it.”
“These are — these are serious times and this is a very serious matter. And I’ve said many times over the last few years, because impeachment has been an issue that we’ve all become all too familiar with, that next to the Declaration of War, you can make an argument that impeachment may be the heaviest power that Congress holds. That — that constitutional responsibility lies with the House,” Johnson began at a press conference.
“We — we have a duty to pursue the facts where they lead. John Adams famously said ‘Facts are stubborn things.’ And you heard the recitation of that here this morning. These facts are alarming. They’re alarming to the American people, they are alarming to us. And so while we take no pleasure in the — in the proceedings here, we have a responsibility to do it. We’re very proud of the work of these three chairmen that you’ve seen here, Chairman Comer, and Jordan and Smith,” Johnson added.
He continued: “They’ve done an exceptional job on uncovering the obvious corruption. And you’ve heard it here summarized this morning, very succinctly, President Biden and the Biden family. We — we owe it to the American people to continue this process, but to do it methodically, and transparently. Many of you know I was on — I’m a lawyer, I’m constitutional law attorney, I served on President Trump’s impeachment defense team twice. And we lament it openly, and we decried how the Democrats politicize that process, they were brazenly political, and how they — they brought those meritless impeachment charges against the — the president.”
“This what you’re seeing here is exactly the opposite. We are the rule of law team, the Republican Party stands for the rule of law. And the people in charge of this are doing this thoroughly, carefully and methodically. They’re investigating and gathering all the facts,” he said.
“And to do this appropriately, and to do it in a manner that upholds our constitutional responsibility, requires time, it requires a sound process. You don’t rush something like this. You can’t, if you’re going to have fidelity to the Constitution. These chairmen are committed to proceeding in that manner. And that’s what you’re seeing. We’ve — we’ve heard from whistleblowers, Biden business associates, legal experts and now we have reached the point in the investigation that we need to hear from a handful of really key witnesses in this,” Johnson stated.
Johnson continued, “The — the chairman have issued a — a few dozen subpoenas, and we expect that those would be complied with in an expeditious manner. We’re not prejudging this. We will follow the facts wherever they lead. Again, that’s our constitutional duty. And — and I fully support our chairmen in their efforts, and we’ll have a lot more to share on this in the days ahead. We’ll take a few questions.”
 
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