No one should expect Morning Joe is going to approach the House impeachment inquiry with anything less than hostility. Joe Scarborough routinely rips into House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, recently comparing him to Arnold the Pig from Green Acres. But on Thursday morning, they turned to NBC reporter Ryan Nobles to explain how the Republicans just don't have any serious connection between Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.
After showing video of Nobles battling with House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith on the timeline -- with Nobles insisting you can't hold Joe Biden accountable for grifting while he's out of office -- Willie Geist asked Nobles: "Have you, in your reporting as an excellent reporter, have you found anything that shows you a connection between Hunter Biden's business dealings and the president of the United States?" Nobles underlined it has to be legal:
NOBLES: There isn't that hard piece of evidence that, if you presented it in a court of law, would convict someone. I think that's the important part of this. And I do believe that there are two different conversations to be having here. There is an ethical, moral and political conversation, and then there is a legal question. When you're talking about moving to articles of impeachment, you know, I think we're all not naive to the fact that impeachment is a political exercise, but you really do need the legal evidence to try and nail that down in a way that would really allow you to use the force of the government to potentially remove a president from office.
No one expects Geist to wonder which laws were broken for impeaching Donald Trump over a phone call with Ukrainian leader Wlodomyr Zelenskyy. The liberal journalists didn't say "well, there's the ethical part and then the law-breaking part."
On "Morning Joe," NBC reporter Ryan Nobles insists the Republicans don't have a legal basis for impeachment yet. No one expects Willie Geist to ask him for the legal basis for impeaching Trump over a phone call to Zelenskyy. pic.twitter.com/liijvMSXC7
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) September 28, 2023
Nobles actually said you can't just impeach Biden over a phone call!
NOBLES: I think there are a lot of questions about what Hunter Biden was doing around the world, and perhaps doing it in the name of his father or at least under the banner of the Biden family, but there has to be more than just Joe Biden was on a speakerphone when Hunter Biden called him -- I'm sorry -- Hunter Biden was on a speakerphone when he called his father when he was around his business associates. You need more than that to establish a direct connection.
The NBC reporter said perhaps the Republicans will get bank records to prove Joe Biden was paid by Hunter Biden, but he insisted that wasn't a serious issue if he did when he was out of office: "This is why I say I'm obsessed with this, we go back to the timeline. Even if something like that is established, if Joe Biden isn't the president or vice president at the time, is that illegal?"
NBC and MSNBC sound desperate as they insist that was impeachable under Trump can't possibly be impeachable for Biden.
PS: In the previous hour, Jonathan Lemire repeated the usual "no evidence" lie: "We can't say this enough, Republicans haven't provided any evidence that yet links the president to his son's business dealings."
