Constitutional lawyer and law professor Jonathan Turley led the Republicans’ opening salvo in the impeachment inquiry into Biden, which began Thursday.
Turley has been the focus of Democratic spin claiming he does not support the impeachment inquiry, which is not the case.
But first, Turley dispelled the myth that “smoking gun” evidence of direct payments to Joe Biden showing quid pro quo is necessary to impeach a sitting president.
“Professor Turley, the false statements, the influence peddling scheme and Joe Biden could have benefited,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). “Let’s do the third one. First, is it a benefit to your family? Can a benefit to your family be a benefit to you?”
“It is,” Turley remarked. “There have been repeated statements ‘that President Biden must be shown to have accepted direct money’ in order for it to constitute a benefit, even in criminal cases dealing with bribery, racketeering and the Hobbes Act. In fact, courts have they have refused. They have said that the money that will go to the family members is in fact a benefit and I really don’t see any legal basis for that. Obviously the strongest case is if you have a direct payment. But this idea that you can have millions that go to the family of a politician and that is not a benefit, I think it is quite fallacious”.
Turley is not alone in this assessment of bribery and extortion laws.
“There are cases where payments made to family members can be treated as a bribe from the principle if he is aware of it,” Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz told the Daily Caller News Foundation in l August
Former federal prosecutor and FBI consultant Joseph Moreno told the DCNF that federal law makes it a crime “for a public official to directly or indirectly receive something of value in exchange for being influenced in the performance of any official act.”
“Therefore, to establish whether there was a consideration, prosecutors would have to show that something was demanded or received by a public official (including the president) in exchange for some official act (ie approving foreign aid, put pressure on a foreigner). official),” he explained. “This can be done through a direct payment or gift to a public official, or indirectly through, for example, a family member or business associate.”
A payment accepted through a family member could also be relevant in an impeachment trial, where the rule that leads to the removal of a president is easier to meet and does not “require a statutory violation,” he said. add.
“The impeachment by the House (art. I, section 2) and the trial by the Senate are for when a president commits “serious crimes and misdemeanors”, which is not a defined term in the Constitution, but has been considered in large measure as what Congress considers. to be,” he said. “So if Congress wants to impeach and prosecute President Biden for benefiting from improper payments received through his son or other family members, they are free to do so.”
In addition, Turley’s comprehensive remarks about the justification for the impeachment inquiry into Biden dispel the media spin that the legal scholar dismissed the basis of the investigation.
“Then it was only three years ago that another impeachment occurred without a hearing,” Turley noted. “The shortening of the intervals between impeachments should be a cause for concern and caution for all members of both parties, and I want to emphasize why we are here today.”
“This is a matter for an impeachment inquiry,” he continued. “It’s not a vote on articles of impeachment. In fact, I don’t think the current evidence supports articles of impeachment. That’s something that an investigation has to establish, but I also think the House has crossed the threshold of “an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Biden.”
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