Rep. Mike Turner spends most of his time praising the wisdom of Jonathan Turley. And again, we’re going down the road to Burisma. 

Turner brings up the fact that the attorney general has a special prosecutor looking ino classified materials that Biden already turned over and strings a new conspiracy theory that Hunter Biden was selling classified info. So that’s at least a fun new unsupported line of BS.

Lynch says he’s surprised that he walked into this meeting with supposed witnesses and didn’t find Rudy Giuliani, the one person who can actually answer questions about how the Burisma story started. 

Gerhardt agrees that it “seems obvious” Giuliani should be there.

Rep. Stephen Lynch points out that not one of the witnesses Republicans brought has any knowledge of any wrongdoing by President Biden, any evidence about Hunter Biden, or anything really to contribute to this processes.

Lynch points out that O’Conner’s article “You’d go to prison for what Biden did” was actually “You’d go to prison for what Hunter Biden did.” O’Conner says she left out the “Hunter” because she was “cutting down words to say inside my five minutes.”

A pretty important word, says Lynch.

Jordan and Turley tag teaming the idea that you don’t need any evidence to do an impeachment inquiry, and boy are they spending a lot of time defending just sitting here today.

Jordan jumps fully into the Burisma claims as the basis of this investigation. Which is an absolutely full on perfect, since that’s has been so roundly disproven since 2019.

Jordan is back in front of the cameras screaming. Because being louder makes things more important.

Norton throws back to Raskin so he can ask Gerhardt about how Republicans aren't concerned about the $2 billion pocketed by Jared Kushner.

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton goes back to Gerhardt who emphasis that there is no credible evidence against President Biden, and that impeachment without evidence doesn’t just trivialize impeachment, but “trivializes the Constitution and runs roughshod over the rule of law.”

Note that is is Democrats who are actually asking for witnesses to the Burisma deal to be called, while Republicans are quickly shutting down that effort. Because Republicans want to use the claims against President Biden without any threat of the truth getting in the way.

Smith gets his turn to talk about the “700 pages of documents” from his fantastic press conference. 

He asks O’Conner a question about “Biden family” and “the family” are apparently a thing that is capable of violating campaign laws. 

This thing is so scripted that O’Conner is thrown off because she admits that she thought Smith was going to ask her a different question about a different part of the conspiracy theory. O’Conner also points to Dubinsky as someone who can fill Smith in on how some part of this “family” worked. Because it’s an ensemble piece.

Raskin asks Gerhardt about whether any impeachment inquiry has been launched without a vote of the full House. Nope. How about impeachment inquiries without evidence of a crime? Nope. Gerhardt agrees with Raskin that hearing from Giuliani and Parnas is important. 

Raskin asks Gerhardt for a theory that Trump didn’t deserve to be impeached for Jan. 6, but Biden does deserve to be impeached for … whatever. Gerhardt says he cannot. 

Raskin moves to enter a letter from Parnas into the record.

Jordan starts off with the $250,000 that was sent to Hunter Biden by wire which used Joe Biden’s home address which was insta-debunked after Republicans tried to spring this yesterday. 

So, Jordan is now asking Dubinsky about how this matches his experience of fraudsters, which is exactly why Dubinsky is there. So that every theory that Jordan, Comer, or Smith wants to posit can be supported.

Then Jordan turns to Turley, who has handily prepared for Republicans a list of crimes they might consider using to impeach President Biden, since they don’t have anything. This whole back and forth with Turley is fantastic, because it amounts to Turley flat-out advising the Republicans on how to conduct their case. 

And lord help us, now we have to get through all the questions from members. So here we go...

Professor Michael Gerhardt starts off warning against the trivializing of impeachment inquiries, and quoting Alexander Hamilton from the Federalist papers. 

Gerhardt goes back through the evidence that Jordan gave, simplifies it, and shows where it not only doesn’t come close to justifying impeachment, but doesn’t show that President Biden did anything wrong. Most importantly, Gerhardt points out that all the things they are doing—criticizing the actions of prosecutors, talking about whether Hunter Biden’s deal was proper—are outside of the functions of the Committee.

Dubinsky just said that shell companies “more often than not” are used for illicit purposes.

Someone might want to get in touch with the guy who has over 500 of those shell companies. (Hint: That’s Donald Trump)

Bruce Dubinsky is hear to tell us he knows all about fraudsters, fraud, and how fraudsters move their money around. His whole testimony seems to boil down to saying “where there’s smoke there’s fire” except he can’t say anything about whether there’s any actual fire. Or smoke.

Expect all his testimony to be about his “experience with fraudsters.” Republicans are going to use him to paint a picture of Joe Biden’s family moving money around through shell companies. Evidence be damned,

Eileen O’Conner says she was “invited to share her comments on Hunter Biden as a private citizen.” That’s—interesting. And then she moves directly to acting as a proxy for IRS “whistleblowers” Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler.

Then she talks about his Wall Street Journal editorial titled “Throw Hunter Biden’s plea deal in the trash” And her second editorial titled “You’d go to prison for what Biden did.” If you wondered why she’s there, now you know.

O’Conner goes on to extend a new conspiracy theory that the IRS and DOJ were somehow making a deal with Hunter Biden to try and cut off Shapley. Everything she said absolutely contradicts Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss. But again, no one is bothering to hear from people who were really involved.

Turley starts off the affair by talking about how he believes the House has “passed the threshold” for the inquiry. Then goes on to admit that everything is simply an allegation.

For what it’s worth, I allege that Turley is a hack. Can we impeach him?

Now Jordan introduces the witnesses. Oddly enough, their appearances on Fox and their connections to Trump have gone unmentioned.

In addition to the Republican witnesses, Democrats have called law professor Michael Gerhardt.

After some wrangling, Jordan goes through the motion of tabling Raskin’s call for for witnesses who are actual witnesses. It is, of course, promptly blocked along partisan lines.

Because the last thing Republicans want in this hearing is someone who actually knows something about the claims they are making.

Raskin insists that Rudy Giuliani and his convicted partner in crime Lev Parnas be called as witnesses, asks for a vote. Jordan just refuses to do it.

Raskin has spent the last ten minutes just eating this hearing alive. 

Raskin once again goes through the steps showing that the firing of Shokin was part of a fight against corruption in Ukraine that was backed by multiple governments and by Republicans in the U.S. Senate. It wasn’t until years after the event that the whole “Biden did it to help Burisma” scheme was concocted by Giuliani and Trump.

“If the Republicans had a smoking gun, or even a dripping water pistol, they would be presenting it today, but they’ve got nothing on Joe Biden. All they can do is return to the thoroughly demolished lie that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump launched five years ago — the Burisma conspiracy theory.” — Rep. Jamie Raskin

Raskin making it clear that if they had to put this farce up for a vote, Jordan, Comer, and Smith don’t have the votes to get this inquiry started. It’s only because Rep. Kevin McCarthy bypassed all the rules he had thumped during Trump’s impeachment. 

Raskin starts with a series of quotes from Republicans that are genuinely fun. Also, Raskin got in a quote from “Alfred Pennyworth in the Dark Knight,” which is a pretty good illustration of just where this hearing is taking place.

Rep. Jamie Raskin points out that since this whole farce didn’t get a vote in the House, all the attacks on President Biden are a violation of House rules. But Jordan just says that’s okay, Biden can be smeared at will.

And now we get Rep. Jim Jordan. How also jumps right to the Ukraine false claims.

This whole thing about the prosecutor in Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, has been debunked over, and over, and over. Really, it’s just perfect that this is already turning out to be the heart of this “inquiry.” 

The second part of this is going to be how Joe Biden somehow controlled the Department of Justice all through the Trump administration. Which is just high fantasy.

And Rep. Jason Smith jumps right into the repeatedly debunked claims about Joe Biden in Ukraine. Because of course they’re going to go there.

Rep. James Comer starts right off claiming to have a “mountain” of evidence and treating every claim as if it is an established fact. It’s always easier to conduct a trial if you don’t have to prove anything. Maybe they’ll just skip right to the end.