Democratic Congressman Reveals the Fatal Flaw in GOP’s Biden Investigation

A Democratic representative on Wednesday revealed the fatal flaw in Republicans’ latest attempt to smear Joe Biden: Their supposed informant has already debunked their so-called evidence.

House Republicans have accused the Biden family of corruption for months but have been unable to provide any actual evidence linking Biden or his son Hunter to any wrongdoing. Most recently, House members were allowed to see an FBI document, which the GOP claims includes audio recordings of Biden and Hunter Biden accepting a bribe.

During an Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday, Democratic Representative Daniel Goldman said he had been eager to see the FD 10-23, a form the FBI uses to note unverified information from confidential sources. But he soon realized that the document was “just a three-year-old secondhand, hearsay, uncorroborated rehashing of Rudy Giuliani’s bogus allegations that he got from corrupt Ukrainian officials.”

Giuliani and Donald Trump first pushed the conspiracy that the Biden family accepted a $10 million bribe to remove former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin in 2016 to stop a probe into Hunter Biden’s role at the oil company Burisma Holdings. Several Republican lawmakers say that not only does the FBI form they saw last week mention this bribe but that a Burisma executive has audio recordings of Biden and Hunter Biden accepting the money. Both Anna Paulina Luna and Marjorie Taylor Greene said that executive is Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky.

This claim has been repeatedly debunked by multiple State Department and intelligence experts on Russia and Ukraine.

But Goldman highlighted the main flaw in Republicans’ argument: “You know who else also debunked these allegations? Mykola Zlochevsky”—the same man Republicans claim has the secret incriminating audio recordings.

When Zlochevsky was asked by Politico in 2020 whether Biden had ever assisted Burisma while he was vice president, he said simply, “No.” Zlochevsky also said that “no one from Burisma ever had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him” while his son was on the company board.

Goldman also pointed out that the FBI, alongside a U.S. attorney appointed by then-President Donald Trump, had reviewed the bribery accusation when it was made in 2020 and found it to be unsubstantiated.

Republicans, led by Oversight Chair James Comer, have insisted that Biden is guilty of corruption, despite repeatedly admitting that they have no evidence, they don’t know if their information is legitimate, and they don’t even really care if the accusations are accurate. Comer barely seems to know how many supposed informants he has, but he still brings up the investigation every chance he gets.

“Chairman Comer has asked, ‘Why is this committee the only committee that’s investigating him?’ And that’s the right question: Why?” Goldman said. “Because everybody else who’s looked at it has found these allegations to be completely bogus. So let’s move on.”

Lindsey Graham is putting up a banner week of patheticness.

Earlier this week, Graham temperamentally snapped at a news anchor on live television after he was simply asked straight-up whether he believes twice-impeached and now twice-arrested Donald Trump did anything wrong.

Then, on Wednesday, Graham expressed a maximally incoherent version of the classic “if they can arrest Donald Trump for [any one of his dozens of lifetime crimes], imagine what else they can do”:

“If the special counsel indicts President Trump in Washington, D.C., for anything related to January 6, that will be considered a major outrage by Republicans because you could convict any Republican of anything in Washington, D.C.,” Graham told CNN’s Manu Raju.

Let’s break this down, step by step. Graham seems to suggest:

A) It’s outrageous to hold Trump legally accountable for helping incite an attack on the nation’s capital.

B) If he is held accountable, you could convict any Republican (which maybe says more about where he thinks the party stands in relation to Trump and his misdeeds).

C) It’s outrageous for any of that recourse to happen in Washington, D.C., the site where the January 6 attack took place.

Somehow, every step of Graham’s formulation sounds dumber than the next. To be holding onto some imagined reality in which a man who lost an election by 7,000,000 votes spent months spurring up conspiracies about said election, actively tried influencing officials across the country to help him overturn said election, and encouraged his loyal supporters to rise up on a specific day is not, perhaps liable for the ensuing chaos, is one thing.

To also argue that indicting that chaos in the jurisdiction where it occurred is for some reason out of bounds is another thing.

And of course, the cherry on top is Graham’s admission that if Trump was held accountable for such actions, there logically would be other Republicans to follow (even if Trump is held accountable, it’s unlikely any other members of Congress would really go down with him).

Graham’s commitment to a guy who has had the party lose over and over and over again is embarrassing. A reminder, once again, of Graham’s words in 2016: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.”

Another day, another right-wing call to boycott a brand for appearing even slightly tolerant of transgender people.

Conservatives are now calling to boycott Frosted Flakes cereal after their official mascot, Tony the Tiger, was pictured with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney at the Tony Awards on Sunday.

This is unfortunately not the first time that Mulvaney has been at the center of a far-right firestorm. Both she and Bud Light received backlash in March over a campaign she did with the beer brand. That incident has kicked off a spree of right-wing calls for boycotts.

But at this rate, conservatives are rapidly running out of places to eat, drink, and shop. Far-right podcast host Joey Mannarino announced he would be “dumping out my Frosted Flakes” over its association with Mulvaney and switching to Froot Loops. He did not seem to realize that both cereal brands are owned by Kellogg’s, so he’s not actually sending his money somewhere else.

People are also boycotting Chick-fil-A because it has an H.R. department. They are refusing to eat at Cracker Barrel after the chain posted favorably about Pride on social media.

Right-wingers are boycotting Target, Walmart, and Kohl’s for their Pride merchandise. Target has even received bomb threats. Nike and Adidas are selling trans-inclusive athletic wear, so they’re off the table too. The North Face did a campaign featuring a drag queen named Pattie Gonia, so conservatives are shopping elsewhere.

They may want to skip Patagonia too, since the company has also partnered with Pattie Gonia. While they’re at it, people on the far right will probably also have to drop Ruger, Black Rifle Coffee, Home Depot, and Molson Coors, all of which have teams dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

If conservatives really want to only support nonwoke businesses, their options are growing fewer by the day.

If there’s one thing most people in America agree on, it’s that we need more gun laws. And Tennesseans—even ones polled by the Tennessee Firearms Association—are no different.

Published at the beginning of June, the poll found a narrow plurality of people who felt gun laws are not strict enough. Sixty-two percent of people supported red flag laws, policies that stop people from owning a firearm if they are flagged to be a danger to themselves or others; only 25 percent of respondents were opposed.

The results follow two other polls with similar findings. An April poll conducted by Embold Research found 88 percent of respondents supporting background checks for all gun sales and 70 percent in favor of red flag laws.

Another poll conducted by Vanderbilt University found 72 percent of respondents supporting red flag laws, with a whopping 82 percent supporting Governor BIll Lee’s executive order to strengthen background checks. In the context of school shootings, a whole 50 percent supported banning assault weapons outright.

It’s clear that amid the Nashville school shooting that left six people dead, and the subsequent Republican failure to enact gun safety policy (and instead punish three Democrats who stood in solidarity with thousands of Tennesseans demanding action), voters have dramatically flipped their perception of the GOP-led state legislature.

Last year, the Vanderbilt poll found 55 percent of voters approving of the legislature, and 34 percent disapproving—a net approval of 21 percent. Their latest poll showed a net approval of negative 5 percent, with only 43 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving, a 26 percent dip.

The disapproval is unsurprising too given that, while scores of Tennesseans want red flag laws, state Republicans have been staunchly against them. In April, the party issued a incoherent statement announcing their total opposition to red flag laws. “[A]ny red flag law is a non-starter,” the party said, while also saying in the same breath they are “focused on finding solutions that prevent dangerous individuals from harming the public.”

Tennessee Republicans have repeatedly shut down such laws that could’ve prevented the school shooting: once two years ago, and again in April—right after the shooting.

The pattern of disapproval for Republican deregulation comes while 217 House Republicans—including all of Tennessee’s Republican representatives—voted to weaken gun safety regulation on Tuesday; the members voted to repeal regulation over attachments used in the Nashville shooting.

While Donald Trump was being arraigned for the second time in months, the rest of his party was busy weakening gun regulations in a country that has suffered at least 291 mass shootings this year alone.

On Tuesday, 217 House Republicans voted to repeal a federal rule designed to curb such senseless violence. Two conservative Blue Dog Democrats, Jared Golden and Mary Peltola, joined Republicans. Two Republicans, Brian Fitzpatrick and Thomas Kean, voted alongside 208 Democrats to protect the gun safety measure.

The Republicans voted to overturn a Biden administration rule issued in January that clarified that any firearm with a stabilizing brace allowing it to be shot from the shoulder counts as a rifle and has to be registered with the government as such.

While the stabilizing brace has been used by gun owners without full use of both of their arms, the attachment has also enabled mass shooters to cause further destruction. One of the guns reportedly used in the Nashville school shooting that left six people dead, for instance, was an AR-15 pistol equipped with a stabilizing brace. Such an attachment was also used in the 2021 mass shooting at a Boulder, Colorado, grocery store that left 10 people dead.

Nevertheless, Republicans voted to weaken oversight over such weapons—just days after survivors from numerous mass shootings visited the Hill to ask members of Congress for even a smidgen of meaningful action on guns.

The vote, House Resolution 44, was part of Republicans’ efforts to restart House floor business amid internal party disputes, after some members last week voted down a rule for the first time in decades, putting House business at a standstill for days.

The vote now heads to the Senate. Even if it passes the narrowly split chamber, President Biden has said he will veto the attempt to weaken gun safety regulation.

Amid the drama and the Republican effort to weaken the government’s ability to protect its people, Democrats have filed measures to welcome floor votes on several measures seeking to reduce gun violence. Representatives Lucy McBath, James Clyburn, and Mike Thompson each filed their own petitions to force votes on things like increasing background checks and banning assault weapons. The Democrats would need just five Republicans to join them in triggering a vote on any of the bills.