him. him. "ac 360" starts now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com tonight on "360," breaking news. the house takes a major step in votes to authorize an impeachment inquiry into president biden. but do they have any evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. also judge tanya chutkan overseeing the case against the former president, hitting pause on the proceedings. and cofounder of moms for liberty gets caught up in a sex scandal of her own. good evening. thanks for joining us. we begin with tonight's historic vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry into president biden that house republicans have been pursuing with months with little or nothing so far to show for it. president biden tonight called it a baseless political stunt. the vote 221-212 was entirely along party lines. pushing for it earlier today, house speaker mike johnson said tonight, tonight's action was, quote, called for and appropriate, which is certainly a change from the mike johnson of four years ago, who believed the exact opposite when the subject of the impeachment was donald trump. >> the founding fathers, the founders of this country warned against single party impeachments, and they had a very specific reason for warning us against that. they said that it would be bitterly divisive, perhaps irreparably divisive for the country. and that's what's happened now. >> that was four years ago. when mike johnson said that, he had already seen plenty of evidence against the former president, including sworn testimony from ex-administration officials that the former president had tried to pressure ukraine's president into investigating or at least announcing investigation into then candidate biden and his son, hunter. that wasn't enough for him then. this time, it's different. there's next to no evidence of impeachable offenses, yet he is on record all the way back in august saying, and i quote, the evidence and allegations against president biden are the worst in the history of the country. it's not even close, he said. keeping him honest, in addition to lumping allegations and evidence together, he's the one making the allegations, along with a top republican committee chairman, which lends an echo chamber quality to it all. even for republicans who are not making allegations and just want answers, it's worth examining what the search for answers has yielded so far. >> today the house oversight committee is releasing subpoenaed bank records that show hunter biden's business entity made direct monthly payments to joe biden. this wasn't a payment from hunter biden's personal account but an account for his corporation that received payments from china and other shady corners of the world. >> so, that's house oversight committee chair james comer talking about what evidence would later suggest were repayments of a car loan back in 2018, before joe biden was president. though there has been testimony that hunter biden played up his relationship with his father, neither chairman's comer committee nor jim jordan's committee established hunter biden influenced any decisions by president biden or then-vice president biden. they've uncovered no evidence that what hunter biden is saying and said again at the capitol today is not true. >> my father was not financially involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of burisma, not in my partnership with chinese businessmen, not in investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist. >> hunter biden was supposed to be questioned by the oversight committee today. in defying the subpoena, he added to his troubles, which now include two federal indictments. again, this has nothing to do with his father and his capacity as president. don't tell that to chairman comer, who had this to say last week. >> we think there are many more crimes, and my concern is that wise may have indicted hunter biden to protect him from being deposed in the house oversight committee. >> so they indicted him to protect him. yes. the classic rubric. he indicted him to protect him. i got it. >> so, in that indictment and the earlier one, prosecutors lay out the evidence that they have gathered. chairman comer and jordan so far have not. they've made plenty of allegations and a lot of tv appearances, which could be entirely the point. just ask the former president, who recently posted this on his social network. biden is a stone cold crook. you don't need a long inquiry to prove it. it's already proven. joining us now, one of the no votes, california democratic congressman adam schiff, who oversaw the former president's first impeachment. so, congressman, what is your reaction to vote tonight? and are you surprised at all by the unanimous republican support? >> i'm not surprised. these are not serious people. this is not a serious impeachment inquiry. it is a tragedy and a farce, and it's motivated by two things. one of them, i think, was that social media post that you just showed on the screen. that is, they want to dilute the stain of trump's two gentlemen lit legitimate impeachments with an illegitimate impeachment of joe biden. they have no affirmative agenda for the country. they're doing nothing on housing, nothing on climate change, nothing on gun safety. what they are doing, they did a sham censure of me. they vacated their own speaker. they had to expel one of their own members. and now they're engaged in a farce of an impeachment proceeding as a way of, i guess, taking up time on the floor because they have nothing else to offer the american people. it's a terrible reason for an impeachment proceeding. >> there are moderate republicans who want to do good. did they go along with this just because of pressure from their constituents, because of pressure to toe the line with the former president? >> absolutely. one of the things that donald trump did well and did shrewdly is anyone who stepped an inch out of line, he would come down on them like a ton of bricks. and he would organize primary challenges and go after them. and, you know, what we've seen is a epidemic of cowardice in the gop conference. and that's what's motivating this here. when you contrast it, as you alluded, the overwhelming evidence that we had that president trump had withheld hundreds of millions of dollars to ukraine to extort president zelenskyy into helping his presidential campaign or the evidence that was before all of us in congress, president trump's incitement of a violent attack on the capitol, the subject of two impeachments of donald trump, to the lack of any evidence of wrong doing on the part of joe biden, it just shows you the glaring abuse of this process. and it just invites further abuse of impeachment or any other tool, censure, or anything else by this maga crowd. >> is it clear to you how house republicans are going to try to find evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors now? they've come up short for months, with multiple investigations. >> they have. and i think they have no idea. and i think what they also don't fully appreciate -- and this is something i think speaker pelosi understood. and that is, once you get this train started, you darn well better be sure you have the evidence. and you may need to gather further insights and flesh out that evidence, but it gathers momentum on its own. and then it becomes very difficult to stop. but the republican conference doesn't seem to be able to think ahead of next week or tomorrow. and so they're putting the country on this train destined for nowhere. so, you know, by contrast, you know, we did a thorough investigation. we waited until the evidence was rife even to begin a formal inquiry. and we see none of that happening here. this is an impeachment in search of a reason for being. it is an impeachment with a target but no evidence of a high crime or a misdemeanor. >> so, now -- >> and in that respect, it's -- >> so, now, comer and jordan -- they say they're going to start contempt proceedings against hunter biden for not appearing at a scheduled deposition today. they referenced you in their joint statement saying, quote, democrats used depositions in their investigations, including the adam schiff impeachment inquiry. i'm wondering what your response is to that. >> we did use depositions, and we used open hearings. and they offered hunter biden an open hearing. and then they told him, no, they wouldn't accept it. look, i welcome that hearing in the judiciary committee because i think i will move to add jim jordan to the contempt motion. anderson, i don't understand how these people do it. we're going to have jim jordan who failed to appear for his own deposition, failed to cooperate with a deposition. he's going to be the one to convene a contempt hearing of hunter biden. i'll be very interested to see what that looks like. but if he brings a contempt motion, he should be added to it. >> congressman schiff, thank you for your time. i want to get perspective from former biden communications director, kate bedingfield. she's currently cnn political commentator. so are david axelrod and -- respectively. david axelrod, i'm wondering what you thought of hunter biden's appearance in front of congress today and their move now, this vote that took place. >> look, just from a strategic standpoint, i thought it was the right thing to do because it underscored the fact that he showed up and was willing to testify and they didn't want to hear from him in public. so, i thought it was the right thing to do. and he's got a lot of problems that, you know, legal problems that he has to deal with. but i thought in this particular instance, he did the right thing. i just want to say something, anderson, about what adam schiff just said. he said, once you get these things started, they're hard to stop. i don't think they're ever going to stop. i don't think they're -- i don't think the speaker can get the votes to actually impeach the president. i don't think he wants to call the question. i think a lot of people who voted for it today who are in competitive districts don't want to call the question. so, i think this is just going to be, kind of, a benghazi-like experience where it goes on and on until the election comes around. >> kate, do you think that's going to happen as well? do you think that's how it's going to be? >> i do, i do. because i think, you know, you have these republicans in 18 biden districts who don't want to take a vote on this, who don't want to have to go back to their constituents and say that they participated in this essentially political sham process. they said as much rolling into this vote today over the course of the last few months, you saw a lot of those republicans saying this isn't where our focus should be. they don't want to take that vote. they know it potentially jeopardizes their majority in the house. i think ultimately what happens here is i agree republicans have put themselves in a weird box because either a group of them, enough of them, if they took a vote, would exonerate biden, great for joe biden. or you put these vulnerable members who then have to go back to their constituents and explain the vote under the gun and having to vote for this thing. it doesn't make a lot of sense for me as a political calculation for the house republicans. and at the end of the day, i think it will hurt them more than joe biden. >> the house judiciary committee voted four years ago tonight. then congressman mike johnson -- i want to play what he said four years ago. >> the founding fathers, the founders of this country warned against single party impeachments, and they had a very specific reason for warning us against that. they said that it would be bitterly divisive, perhaps irreparably divisive for the country. and that's what's happened now. >> if that was the principle in 2019, why is it not important tonight do you think? >> i think what's happened, anderson, is -- i was listening to congressman schiff talking just laughing and shaking my head. it is just -- you know, impeachment is a political tool. that's what's going on here. it's politics r, pure and simpl. this is going to be a benghazi-like inquiry. it's going to go on and on and on. there's not going to be a call for a vote on the question of whether or not to impeach the president. i don't think that's the ultimate objective here at the end of the day. the end of the day is to -- in a political year, is to draw as much blood as possible. look, on president trump's inauguration day, "the washington post" called for his impeachment on the day he was inaugurated. it's not like this sport just started two days ago or this evening on this vote. it started way, way back in the gingrich days when we impeached clinton for something that may not have been impeachable. and here we sit tonight on the verge of another unstoppable movement. >> david axelrod, was the impeachment of trump a sham and this a sham too? >> i think these are two entirely different issues because basically they're basing an impeachment inquiry on something the president's son did. hunter biden isn't president of the united states. and after two years of trying, they still haven't been able to make a link between joe biden and what hunter did. so, this is entirely different. trump was being held accountable for trump's own actions. but i will say that in terms of the politics of this, mike johnson is -- he is playing a game of twister here. i don't know if he's going to be able to stay on his feet, but he's trying to keep his trump supporters and his freedom caucus people on board. and they are demanding an impeachment. and he's trying to keep his moderate, sort of, biden district members on board. and this was the compromise. we'll do this. but he is now aout of runway here. and now ultimately, you know, whether he can -- everyone indefinitely is the question. >> david urban, do you think this is motivated by the former president, that, you know, he wants this to muddy the waters and these guys, these folks, are dancing to his tune? >> yeah, i don't think that's the case, anderson. i think it's just -- i think it really is red meat for the republican base. i think it alludes to the speaker has to keep his -- he's got to run -- internally there, he's got to run a very complex organization. he's got to get some incredibly complex things done here in the coming month to keep the government going. remember he's got to get a spending bill. he's got lots of things to do that kevin mccarthy got fired for trying to do. he's got to balance all those things on the tip of a pin coming up the next 30 to 60 days. >> i disagree. i just disagree with that anderson. i do think this is an ordered hit from donald trump, who wants to portray equivalence. they went after me, we're going after him. he wants to muddy the waters. and i think his supporters want to muddy the waters. you know, the speaker just made a pilgrimage to president trump. who knows what they talked about. but he came back and now we have this vote. i think trump very much wanted this vote. i think he'd be very angry if there weren't this vote. and now the question is, does he pressure them to take more steps that johnson simply can't deliver? >> kate, as we mentioned, hunter biden made this surprise appearance on capitol hill today. said he's ready to testify before congress, only publicly. i just want to play a little bit more of what he said. >> during my battle with addiction, my parents were there for me. they literally saved my life. they helped me in ways that i will never be able to repay, and of course they would never expect me to. and at the depths of my addiction, i was extremely irresponsible with my finances. but to suggest that is grounds for an impeachment inquiry is beyond the absurd. >> kate, do you think he helped his cause here? >> i do. i do. i think what we saw -- so, the republicans have been trying to make this a central argument against joe biden since he was running in the democratic primary in 2019. this was something we had incoming to the biden campaign in 2019. so, what we learned was that the more we talked about this and the more joe biden talked about this in personal terms, in human terms through the lens of the struggle that hunter went through and the challenges that people all other the country can relate to because everyone has someone in their family or a friend who has struggled with the depths of addiction. the more that people understood that that's what hunter was going through with some of these financial decisions were made, the more they understood it. and that culminating in the 2020 campaign with the debate moment with joe biden standing on the stage next to donald trump, donald trump coming after him in the debate and joe biden saying, i'm proud of my son. i love my son. and i think every person watching this debate right now knows somebody who has struggled like hunter has. i think hunter doing this today, first of all calling their bluff and saying, i will absolutely speak to you in a public, televised hearing, and them saying no was smart on his part. putting this in human terms and standing there and making his case directly was a smart thing to do. >> everybody stay with us. i want to get your take on today's legal developments, the supreme court taking up a case that could help the former president and judge tanya chutkan hitting pause on the january 6th case. later, a florida moral crusader, the salacious allegations about their private life and threesomes and the real question it raises about hypocrisy and double standards ahead. two major legal developments today, either or both of which could benefit the former president. the supreme court agreeing to weigh in on the scope of many january 6th indictments, including the former president's. and judge tanya chutkan's decision today to hit pause on the president's case. joining us now, cnn legal correspondent paula reid. talk about what judge chutkan had to say today. >> anderson, chutkan has been adamant this case will go to trial in march. she's had to put the proceedings on hold. and she has to do this because you really can't put on a case when the court of appeals is considering issues that could render the entire thing moot. this is also why we saw earlier this week special counsel jack smith ask the supreme court to just step in and decide his issue so they can go to trial on time. notably tonight the court of appeals, which is the next scheduled step, unless the supreme court weighs in, they set an expedited schedule for hearing these matters. but even if they move quickly, ultimately the supreme court is going to have to weigh in before this trial can begin. >> and why is the supreme court considering whether part of a federal obstruction law can be used in january 6th cases. >> this is so interesting. they've decided to look at a certain part of a federal obstruction law. and depending on how they define that and how they decide that that may or may not apply to people who participated in the january 6th attack, that could possibly impact trump's case. now, also the supreme court said today that they are going to once again weigh in on the abortion issue, this time on mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion. but anderson, no matter what they decide there, the decision is likely to come by july, the height of the presidential campaign season. so, regardless of what the actual outcome is, the presidential front runners are going to once again face renewed pressure on this issue. so, the supreme court right now looming quite large for this next presidential campaign. >> all right, paula reid, thanks. perspective from elie honig. and back with us, kate bedingfield, and the two davids, axelrod and urban. why did judge chutkan hit pause? >> she had to legally. this is the immunity question here. this is where donald