Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and one of the newly named House impeachment managers. (Photo: Screen capture)

(CNSNews.com) - Was President Donald Trump right to be concerned about Hunter Biden's position on the board of Burisma, at a time when Hunter's father was the sitting vice president of the United States and was directed to serve as President Obama's point-man on Ukraine?

Democrats won't hear of it.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) -- the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and one of the newly named House impeachment managers -- flatly stated that Hunter Biden is "not a relevant witness" at the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

A reporter asked Pelosi and Nadler, "Republicans have suggested they would like to call Hunter Biden. Are you and the managers prepared for that?"

Pelosi asked Nadler to respond:

"Let me say we are prepared, but the relevant question is relevance," Nadler said.

In any trial, you call witnesses who have information about the allegations, about the charges. The allegations for which there's a mountain of evidence are that the president betrayed his country by trying to extort Ukraine by withholding $391 million in military aid that Congress had voted in order to get Ukraine to announce an investigation of a domestic political opponent. That's the allegation.

Any witness who has information about whether that is true or not true is a relevant witness. Anybody like Hunter Biden who has no information about any of that is not a relevant witness. Any trial judge in this country would rule such a witness as irrelevant and inadmissible.

If someone is accused of robbing a bank, witnesses who say, "We saw him run into the bank, we saw him someplace else," are relevant. A witness who says he committed forgery on some other document is not relevant to the bank robbery charge. That's the distinction.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chimed in:

"Let me just say that what is at stake here is the Constitution of the united States. This is what an impeachment is about. The president violated his oath of office, undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections, tried to use the appropriations process as his private ATM machine to grant or withhold funds granted by Congress in order to advance his personal and political advantage.

"That is what the senators should be looking into," she added.

According to the summary of President Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky, Trump said, "I would like you to do us a favor though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it."

This was the day after Robert Mueller testified that his investigation "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

Trump told Zelensky that "a lot of it -- the election interference -- supposedly started in Ukraine:



"I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible," Trump said.

A short time later, Zelensky brought up “investigations.” “I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you,” he told Trump.

Trump responded:

"The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me."

(Joe Biden bragged that as vice president, he used a billion-dollar loan guarantee as leverage to get a Ukraine prosecutor fired. Biden denies the firing had anything to do with his son Hunter's position on the board of a Ukraine gas company.)





