Yesterday, the House Oversight Committee continued its hearings for the Impeachment Inquiry of President Joe Biden. Eighteen members of the House had five minutes to ask questions of two of Hunter Biden’s former business partners, Jason Galanis and Tony Babulinski appearing on behalf of the Republicans, and Lev Parnas, former business associate of Rudy Giuliani appearing for Democrats. It was a tale of two hearings.
On the one hand, the former partners of Hunter Biden discussed shady business deals that included: 1) a Russian oligarch (Yelena Baturina) who wired $3.5 million to Hunter in 2014 after meeting with Joe Biden, 2) at least $3.8M in payments to Hunter from one of China’s largest companies with strong ties to Chinese President Xi Jinping; both confirmed Joe Biden was integral to the relationship and deal, and 3) both testified that Hunter Biden and the President’s brother Jim Biden lied under oath to the committee, and that the President has been lying for years about his close ties to the family business.
The two also confirmed that Hunter and Jim’s entire business model was access to Joe, which Hunter called the “Biden lift.”
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At the “other” contemporaneous hearing in the same room, most of the Democrats spent time either impugning the background of the Republican witnesses or interviewing Lev Parnas about the keystone cops investigation he “ran” to find dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine.
On the first point, it is true that Jason Galanis is in jail for fraud; but it should be clear he is not the first former Biden partner to end up in jail. In addition to Galanis, Devon Archer has been sentenced to jail, and Whitey Bulger’s nephew Jim Bulger (though not in jail as far as we know) was a significant partner of the Bidens. Hm.
Lev Parnas did however score some points to hurt Trump and Giuliani’s brand and attempted to tie them to Russian interests. Parnas testified, “ “My mission for Giuliani and Trump would come to encompass nearly a year of traveling across the globe to find damaging information on the Bidens. This included trips to Ukraine, Poland, Spain, Vienna, London, and other locations…. In my travels, I found precisely zero proof of the Bidens’ criminality.” None of what Parnas had to say was relevant testimony though, as his hits on Trump World have nothing to do with the influence peddling (bribery) scheme cooked up by the Bidens to score at least $24 million in foreign money, and his inability to find evidence does not erase the evidence presented in this hearing and elsewhere. In fact, Representative Matt Gaetz took a shot at impeaching Parnas’ ability to say true things, stating, “The truth for you is taking money from Russians to buy marijuana businesses, then going to jail, and coming in here to lie about Trump!”
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So, each side pleased their devotees, got the sound bytes they wanted for the evening news and for posting their sick burns on X. But did the American people receive anything of value from this hearing?
Mostly no. The biggest problem with Congressional testimony – especially publicly held hearings – is the nature and format of the hearings themselves. Opening statements by the majority, minority and the witnesses are fine and often present a good synopsis of the issues at hand.
However, the five minute questions period, bouncing back and forth between the parties, is useless. Members take the time to grand stand and perform for the camera. They have no time to dig deeply into the subject, and just as their inquiries start to uncover interesting information, the five minutes are up and the next member begins on a completely different line of inquiry. So we bounce around topics and never really get anywhere. It is just a political game and does not serve to find any truth.
There are a number of ways to fix this problem. The first would be to set up more of a debate-style format. Allow each parties’ side an extended period of time to state their case and interview the witnesses, say an hour. Once both sides have completed their inquiry, give each member two minutes to summarize their views, rebut testimony and get their talking points in for the cameras.
Another method would be to limit the number of members participating and to give the smaller number of members each more time for questions. The committees could work out rotations, etc. so that the members get equal camera time.
In sum, this hearing was interesting but did not make an impact either way. Every member left that hearing thinking exactly what they thought beforehand, as likely did interested citizens watching. That’s simply a waste of time.
Justin Weller is the Founder and Editor of The Country, and host of the podcast The Country with Justin Weller. Prior, he was a general manager and sales leader in startup and Big Tech firms, interned on Capitol Hill, and was a Contributing Editor at mxdwn.com. This piece is republished from The Country
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Tampa Free Press.
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