Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence Committee arrives at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 08, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Why the Impeachment Inquiry Makes No Sense

Commentary

On Oct. 31, the U.S. House of Representatives voted along party lines to open an investigation into whether President Donald Trump should be impeached.

The Democrats are attempting to wear a cloak of patriotism and claim they’re defending democracy and the U.S. Constitution. They take great umbrage when conservatives and the occasional Republican question their patriotism.

That said, let’s take a quick look at the facts and see if this makes any sense.

What we know is that then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden was working for a Ukrainian energy company and making at least $50,000 per month. He has admitted to this publicly. We can all agree that for someone with no experience in the energy sector, a salary of $50,000 per month is wildly beyond extravagant. It’s beyond dispute that Hunter Biden was supplying something of great value to the energy company in question in order to be paid that amount of money.

Since Hunter Biden has no energy experience, what was it that he had to offer of such great value? There’s only one thing that suggests itself, and it’s that Hunter Biden could supply direct, completely private access to the vice president of the United States at the time, his father, Joe Biden. We know this access was given because of photographs that have surfaced with Joe and Hunter Biden playing golf with the energy company executives.

What followed is that in 2016, Vice President Biden threatened the president of Ukraine with withholding very large and badly needed sums of money in the form of loan guarantees if Ukraine didn’t immediately fire one particular prosecutor. Subsequently, Ukraine relented and did indeed fire the prosecutor. Joe Biden has publicly admitted to this and has confirmed it all as fact. Interestingly, that particular prosecutor was investigating the very same energy company that was paying Hunter Biden such an extravagant salary.

The implication is pretty straightforward and impossible to avoid. It appears the energy company knew it was in serious legal jeopardy and was likely to be indicted and convicted in Ukraine of illegal activities.

So, looking for a solution, they hired the vice president’s son and paid him an enormous amount of money when he had no apparent value to the company other than the connection to his father. That connection to his father made Hunter Biden of real value, something so valuable that it would be worth paying him $50,000 per month.

It certainly looks like corruption when Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor and thereby leave that same energy company in the clear and free of the legal jeopardy. There’s no question that there was quid pro quo. Biden clearly stated that he would withhold a billion-dollar aid package if the prosecutor wasn’t fired. They fired him and the aid went forward, a textbook example of quid pro quo.

The remaining question of fundamental importance is, why did Joe Biden do it? It sure looks like a case of corruption in which Hunter Biden received the payoff. The official explanation is that Joe Biden wanted the prosecutor fired for failing to tackle corruption in the country.

This brings us back to the present moment. Trump asked the current president of Ukraine to look into the Biden case to find out if Joe Biden was involved in a blatant case of corruption with a big money payoff. It certainly appears to be the case, which is oddly almost completely ignored in public debate. The president of the United States is fully within his rights to seek to find out if former senior officials were corrupt and receiving payoffs. It’s both moral and correct.

Democrats initially argued that Trump staged a quid pro quo by insisting the Ukraine investigate the Biden corruption case or he would withhold a big dollar aid package. Oddly, we know for a fact by his own admission this is exactly what Biden did. When Trump released the transcripts of the conversation, it was proven that there was no quid pro quo pressure put on Ukraine, and it was merely a request to investigate what we all agree looks like corruption.

Democrats changed their blatant political attack once again and now argue that Trump abused his power by asking that corruption be investigated. It’s absurd to suggest that investigating what clearly looks like corruption is an abuse of any sort. Yet there are even a number of elite Republicans in Washington who openly state that while it was not illegal, it was wrong for Trump to have done it. Really? Why? Because it’s wrong to investigate corrupt Washington elites? I think it’s long overdue.

Democrats have hated Trump since before he was elected and tried over and over to have him removed. This is only the latest idiotic attempt based on hate and politics, nothing more. We the people deserve better.

Brad Johnson is a retired CIA senior operations officer and a former chief of station. He is president of Americans for Intelligence Reform.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.