On the Wednesday edition of the PBS NewsHour, host William Brangham neutrally noted the launch by House Republicans of a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins also set the scene in straightforward fashion, observing that House Republicans are aiming to get more leverage in court to enforce subpoenas, especially against Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who has just defied a congressional subpoena to testify behind closed doors as opposed to in public.
Desjardins even relayed data from a new poll from NPR, PBS and Marist, including the rather surprising figure that “24 percent of Democrats saying a Democratic president, they approve of an impeachment inquiry is significant.”
But PBS fell short with its partisan pick for an expert “impeachment expert” to explain things (i.e. why Republicans are being ridiculous).
Brangham: ….To explain exactly what changes with a formal impeachment inquiry, I'm joined by Michael Gerhardt. He is a professor at the University of North Carolina Law School, and he's testified at the impeachment hearings of Presidents Clinton, Trump, and Biden….
Here's what was left unsaid: Gerhardt has deep ties to Democrats, including donating to Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns, serving as deputy media director of Al Gore’s first U.S. Senate campaign, and acted as special counsel to former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) regarding Obama's nominations of Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. You might guess this from the "no evidence" spin.
Michael Gerhardt, University of North Carolina: What changes with today is nothing, insofar as any evidence is concerned. One of the embarrassing things that happened at that last hearing is, it became obvious to everybody that there was no evidence of President Biden's wrongdoing. But what's changed is, we have a new speaker. And, as you have pointed out previously in the program, the Speaker and other Republicans believe that, by calling this formally an impeachment inquiry, they will have in courts more power, the courts will recognize that the House has more power to go after Hunter Biden. And, again, that's one of the real problems here, which is all the focus right now is on Hunter Biden and not on President Biden. But Hunter Biden is not an impeachable official. He's a private citizen.
….What Republicans are saying is that they're not getting compliance with some subpoenas and they're not getting the data that they want. But the problem is that Republicans want to use these subpoenas for a fishing expedition. They don't know what they're looking for. They don't know if they will find it. The problem, again, is that the cart has been put in front of the horse. We’ve got an impeachment inquiry for the first time in American history authorized against the president in the absence of credible evidence….
It's ludicrous to claim there’s no “credible evidence” linking Hunter Biden to his father, which requires ignoring all the phone calls between Joe and Hunter's clients (where they "only talked about the weather") and the restaurant meetings and the photographs. Evidence keeps pouring out, like the big checks to Joe from his brother James (never mind, it's a "loan repayment.")
William Brangham: I appreciate what you're saying on that front, but the Republicans argue that they do need those tools and that you might characterize it as a fishing expedition, but is it not -- is it considered somehow illegitimate for them to use this process to try to get at those answers?
Michael Gerhardt: At this point, I would say it is illegitimate, and that's because, typically, impeachment inquiries are authorized once there's credible evidence of presidential wrongdoing. That happened with Clinton, it happened with Donald Trump in 2019, and it happened with Richard Nixon back in the 1970s….
This Biden-defending segment was brought to you in part by BNSF Railway.
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS NewsHour
12/13/23
7:36:10 p.m. (ET)
William Brangham: To explain exactly what changes with a formal impeachment inquiry, I'm joined by Michael Gerhardt. He is a professor at the University of North Carolina Law School, and he's testified at the impeachment hearings of Presidents Clinton, Trump, and Biden. His upcoming book "The Law of Presidential Impeachment: A Guide for the Engaged Citizen" is out next month. Michael Gerhardt, thank you so much for being here. Under former Speaker McCarthy, the House Republicans had already started this impeachment inquiry. You were there testifying about this in September. So what changes with today?
Michael Gerhardt, University of North Carolina: What changes with today is nothing, insofar as any evidence is concerned. One of the embarrassing things that happened at that last hearing is, it became obvious to everybody that there was no evidence of President Biden's wrongdoing. But what's changed is, we have a new speaker. And, as you have pointed out previously in the program, the speaker and other Republicans believe that, by calling this formally an impeachment inquiry, they will have in courts more power, the courts will recognize that the House has more power to go after Hunter Biden. And, again, that's one of the real problems here, which is all the focus right now is on Hunter Biden and not on President Biden. But Hunter Biden is not an impeachable official. He's a private citizen.
William Brangham: So House Republicans, though, do make this argument that, even though we have had these committee hearings and we have been looking into this, that we do need these investigative tools. So, specifically, what things are they able to do now that they couldn't do before?
Michael Gerhardt: It's actually not entirely clear. What Republicans are saying is that they're not getting compliance with some subpoenas and they're not getting the data that they want. But the problem is that Republicans want to use these subpoenas for a fishing expedition. They don't know what they're looking for. They don't know if they will find it. The problem, again, is that the cart has been put in front of the horse. We have got an impeachment inquiry for the first time in American history authorized against the president in the absence of credible evidence. And, instead, Republicans are hoping that with this formal authorization of an impeachment inquiry, they can persuade courts that they can perhaps get at bank accounts they have not been able to get up before, not because they think there's anything there necessarily, but because they're still fishing to try and find stuff about President Biden, as opposed to Hunter Biden.
William Brangham: I appreciate what you're saying on that front, but the Republicans argue that they do need those tools and that you might characterize it as a fishing expedition, but is it not — is it considered somehow illegitimate for them to use this process to try to get at those answers?
Michael Gerhardt: At this point, I would say it is illegitimate, and that's because, typically, impeachment inquiries are authorized once there's credible evidence of presidential wrongdoing. That happened with Clinton, it happened with Donald Trump in 2019, and it happened with Richard Nixon back in the 1970s. This is an unusual circumstance, in which Republicans are finding out lots of things about Hunter Biden, and they want more subpoenas to get at not just Hunter Biden, but other people in the Biden family who may or may not have information about Joe Biden. That's almost the definition of a fishing expedition. They don't know what people know. Instead, they just want to have the power to — in a sense, to press people and see what comes up. It may or may not have anything to do with the president. But, again, that's not how the process is supposed to work. Typically, House committees investigate, discover evidence that may show that the president has committed some kind of serious wrongdoing. Keep in mind as well, at the September hearing, the Republicans' own witness said that they didn't find any evidence at that point showing Biden had committed an impeachment offense. So nothing's changed between their saying that and today, except that, today, the House approved a formal impeachment inquiry against President Biden, with the hope that they will have greater subpoena power to conduct this ex — this inquiry to discover who knows what. We don't know what they're looking for, and I don't know if they know what they're looking for.
William Brangham: So, lastly, what is the logistics of the next steps? I mean, what comes next? What do you expect to likely happen?
Michael Gerhardt: Well, I think what'll likely happen is, there will be committees in Congress, like the Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee, and they will begin to conduct hearings, at which supposedly there will be some evidence gathering and evidentiary findings. In addition, there may be a court case filed against some of these subpoenas. That's what the Republican leadership's worried about. And in the court cases, at that point, courts will then have to determine the legitimacy of the subpoenas that have been issued. And the Republican hope is, by formally authorizing the inquiry, they can use the most powerful mechanism Congress has for investigations, impeachment, to support their inquiry
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