The impeachment trial of Donald Trump should begin with an indictment of the media. The alleged crime committed by President Trump revolves around his request that the president of Ukraine investigate the shady business dealings of Hunter Biden with a corrupt Ukrainian oil and gas company.
That investigation might have been unnecessary had the news media chosen to do what they're supposed to be doing: investigative journalism.
Why would Trump have to ask a foreign official for an investigation into Biden sleaze? Because when politicians have a (D) next to their name, the idea of the press “holding people accountable” goes out the window.
It is unfathomable that the American news media would choose not to investigate the activities of the sitting Vice President of the United States using his portfolio running Obama's policies in the Ukraine to get his son a "consulting" job for which he was wholly unqualified to hold, but which paid him a cool 50 grand a month. Then Biden bragged in public that he demanded that country's top prosecutor be removed under threat of America pulling its military aid. The whole thing was stained by his son's business connection.
Maybe somehow they all just missed it. Except they didn't. They knew it was happening.
New York Times investigative reporter James Risen had the story of Hunter Biden and the oil company Burisma in December of 2015. But then the Times buried it. They put the story on page A-22. The national media yawned. In their political calculations, Biden wasn’t running for president, so why make the Obama-Biden White House look bad, now that it was Lame Duck season?
Ever since it became a scandal that Trump asked about Hunter Biden in a phone call to Kiev, our Accountability Police have routinely repeated like a dancing line of puppets that there is “no evidence” the Bidens did “anything wrong.”
Democrats and their media friends also play dumb when the Republicans insist Hunter Biden should be part of the impeachment trial. On the Sunday shows, the network moderators asked the Democrats for their feelings about Hunter Biden as a witness at the Senate trial. The answers to these questions needed a laugh track.
On ABC, Sen. Cory Booker told George Stephanopoulos with a straight face "These assaults on the Biden family are not relevant to what's at issue in this case." On CNN, Sen. Sherrod Brown sounded like he had a low IQ. "I don't know what Hunter Biden has to do with the phone call."
It's not that he doesn't know. It's that he, like Booker, doesn't want to know.
This entire impeachment is about protecting the Biden family from any scrutiny or criticism. So it becomes a scandal to ask questions about the Bidens, which is somehow a massive attempt to despoil the 2020 election. Democracy dies when the Bidens are asked questions?
At least. Rep Jerry Nadler tried a slightly different spin on CBS, and it was even more brazen. He insisted “Hunter Biden has no knowledge of the accusations against the president.” How exactlyi does Nadler know that? Has Hunter Biden been living in a cave for the last few months? Nadler's whopper set up his next statement: “asking for Hunter Biden is just more of a smear of Hunter Biden that the President is trying to get the Ukraine to do.”
And no one can question Hunter Biden on anything. This is not the way the media and the Democrats have treated Donald Trump Jr., or Eric, or Ivanka.
The first lesson of this impeachment charade? The double standards for politicians and their children are breathtaking.
