Major News Networks Take A Pass On Full Coverage Of Latest Joe Biden Impeachment Inquiry Hearing

UPDATED, with additional details from the hearing: The three major news networks largely bypassed live coverage of the latest chapter in a House GOP-led inquiry of whether to impeach President Joe Biden.

That in and of itself was a sign of just how much the effort has been losing steam, even among Republican lawmakers.

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The House Oversight hearing, titled “Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office,” featured Tony Bobulinski a former associate of Hunter Biden. Also testifying, albeit remotely, was Jason Galanis, another associate, who is in an Alabama prison serving a sentence for securities fraud.

Also testifying, as a Democratic witness, was Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani. Parnas said that Giuliani, in advance of the 2020 presidential election, trafficked in false claims that the Biden’s were involved in a Ukrainian corruption scheme, and that the Russians were behind the disinformation effort.

CNN, MSNBC and Fox News provided updates of the hearing, but scant live carriage of the proceeding itself.

The hearing itself opened as a bit of a circus. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) came to the hearing wearing a Vladimir Putin mask, telling reporters that “I just came to thank [committee chairman] James Comer for using all of our intelligence and using it in the committee. Maybe he can come see the technology in our grocery stores,” Moskowitz, still wearing the mark, told reporters.

In his opening statement, Bobulinski said that “Joe Biden was ‘the Brand’ being sold by the Biden family” as part of a “foreign influence peddling operation – from China to Ukraine and elsewhere.” He claimed that Biden met with him and other of his son’s business associates “to further the business, despite being buffered by a complex scheme to maintain plausible deniability.” But Biden has said that he had no part in his son’s business dealings, and Hunter Biden testified in a closed door hearing last month that his father took no part.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pressed Bobulinski, “Did you witness the president commit a crime?”

He answered, “Yes.”

“What crime have you witnessed?” she asked.

They had a tense exchange. He cited RICO statutes, while she reminded him that those were categories of crimes and not specific charges.

“What we are seeing here today is a continuation of the 15-month saga of the Republican majority lost in the desert. Impeachment 101,” Ocasio-Cortez.

Parnas told the committee that “the only information pushed on the Bidens in Ukraine has come from one source, and one source only: Russia and Russian agents. The impeachment proceedings that bring us here now are predicated on false information spread by the Kremlin. Everyone involved knew they were sharing lies.”

Later, Moskowitz challenged Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to “just do the impeachment.” “Why continue to waste millions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money if we are going to impeach because you believe [Biden] has committed a high crime and misdemeanor? What are you waiting on? Let’s just do it?”

“When can you tell the American people you are going to stop wasting their money and just call for the vote in impeachment?”

“We don’t do snap impeachments like you guys,” Jordan responded.

Moskowitz said that if Republicans have not yet called for an impeachment vote, that meant that they had not yet proven their case.

“We’re doing our work. We’re doing our investigation,” Jordan said.

“So they haven’t proven it,” Moskowitz said.

He added, “They are never going to impeach Joe Biden. It is never going to happen, because they don’t have the evidence. …They just want to hold these hearings…They are lying to their base on Newsmax and Fox, leading these people to believe that they are going to eventually impeach the president. It’s not going to happen at all.”

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