A third principle is judicial review. Here i would just remind the committee about the supreme courts decision in trump versus mazar. The court said about this committee that in fact it has to conduct the investigation for a legitimate purpose. A Fishing Expedition is not a legitimate purpose. Moreover, the court in the trump case it is not a legitimate purpose for the house or House Committee to be conducting the function of law enforcement. I heard many references here to criminal misbehavior, to whether or not somebody should be thrown in jail. Criticisms of a prosecutor, mr. Weiss. That sounds to me like an attempt to really substitute for the properly legitimate proceedings of the house. Two other safeguards real quickly. One is that these proceedings should be based on principle, not partisanship. I fear that what were hearing today, which can be traced back to 2019, and accusations made against mr. Biden are driven bipartisan animus more than principle. A final safeguard is for the full house to authorize an Impeachment Inquiry. That comes from Speaker Mccarthy, not me. He said there should be the full houses approval and comes from mr. Trumps Justice Department who said there must be a committee must be authorized by the full house. That has not happened here. My concern is with the constitution. Thats what my devotion is to. And i hope all of us understand that there is nothing more serious than honoring our constitution and following the design the framers gave us. Thank you. I do want to state the fact in 2019 the d. C. District court judge ruled a vote of the full house was not required to commence an Impeachment Inquiry. Well begin the question and answer phase. We have 47 members here today that are going to ask questions. Were going to abide by the five minutes. I will begin followed by Ranking Member raskin. This week the Oversight Committee issued another Bank Subpoena targeting specific wires from beijing. Most of them have been for biden Family Associates accounts holting in thousands of pages of bank records and identified the Bank Accounts based on suspicious Activity Reports filed with the Treasury Department after being flagged by the banks. The bank records obtained this week showed that on august 2, 2019, jonathan lee and miss Tangling In Beijing sent hunter biden 250,000 listing joe bidens home address in wilmington, delaware stating it was for a personal investment. A second wire showed that on july 26, 2019, miss wang shin sent 10,000 listing joe bidens home address in wilmington, delaware. The 10,000 wire said it was a loan to beneficiary. Lets talk about the 250,000 personal investment. Looks like jonathan lee was making a substantial investment in the bidens after joe announced his run for the president in april of 2019. Who is jonathan lee . During archers interview he explained how Vice President biden developed a relationship with jonathan lee. Vice President Biden had could have eave with jonathan lee in beijing. He talked with him on the phone and even wrote a College Recommendation Letter for mr. Lees children. Hunter biden even met with jonathan lee after flying on air force two to beijing with joe biden. The beijing Bidens Cultivateed a relationship with jonathan lee and other chinese nationals for one reason only, to access their wealth. As we all know the bidens had nothing to sell except the brand, which was joe biden. Hunter biden sold the brand well making the biden Family Millions from china and elsewhere. While joe biden was Vice President , hunter biden became an investor in a Chinese Investment fund with jonathan lee and owned a percentage of partners through an llc. It was a political problem for his dad, the big guy, who was running for president. In october 2, 0192, months after the beijing wires Hunter Bidens lawyer claimed he served only as a member of the Board Of Directors in an unpaid position. An unpaid position. Abby lowell claims it is a loan from an individual. The bidens dewepters justification for the money isnt consistent with what we know from the suspicious Activity Reports from treasury. Im skeptical of lowells statement from the payments were a loan. The wire states it was a personal investment. Weve also reviewed documents at treasury that dont support mr. Lowells theory. In your experience, are they documented from loan terms and Repayment Schedules . Yes, mr. Chairman. You would see that. You would see documents setting forth the interest rates, terms of repayment. All of those. So would it be important to review Hunter Bidens bank records and see if hunter biden paid back the money to jonathan lee or if he sent the money to someone else . I dont know, using a cash years check for example . As somebody mentioned earlier it is important to follow the money. Thats very important in this situation. Thank you. Professor turley, we know what the payment is for. Influence peddling and selling the biden brand. To date we have shown the biden family and companies received more than 15 million without providing any known legitimate services between 2014 and 2019. If you include the Business Associates and their companies theyve received over 24 million. Based on evidence weve developed so far, what are some of the potential laws we should be analyzing during our Impeachment Inquiry . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I actually lay out what are the most obvious potential Articles Of Impeachment without saying those have been established but the ones that i recommend for the committee to focus on. One of the things i recommend is that the committee actually start by looking at potential crimes because ive said that in the past two impeachments. That it is an important thing to front load Criminal Acts for the reasons i laid out. It gives a very High Standard for impeachment quite frankly, higher than its binding. I said you can impeach for noncriminal conduct. I suggest starting there. As i talk about in my testimony, bribery, obstruction, conspiracy, abuse of power, those have all been raised in past impeachments. Abuse of power is the article that is very, very common. Tends to be a catch all and it is the one ive always been a little bit uncomfortable with and why i suggest you end there rather than start there because thats the article that brings in a lot of noncriminal conduct and frankly i think that you need to focus as much as you can on the evidence and whether you can establish these connections. Very good. Mr. Raskin. Professor gerhardt, ever an Impeachment Launch Evidence in the middle of a Government Shutdown. No. Why did the office of Legal Counsel opine that there must be a vote of the full house before a committee launches into an Impeachment Investigation . Why did Speaker Mccarthy insist on it and in fact say there would be one in this case . I think the office of Legal Counsel said that at least in part because an Impeachment Inquiry is deadly serious. It is again just about the most serious thing any House Committee ever undertakes. One safeguard against a Committee Acting on the basis of just lets say the party membership, is to insure that the full house is behind the Impeachment Inquiry. A dozen of our colleagues on the republican side have already called for impeachment. Im struck by the fact that of the four expert witnesses brought together today, not a single one of them argued that a sufficient quantum of evidence exists today to justify the impeachment of President Biden. Is there any precedent in our country for launching an Impeachment Inquiry absent evidence of wrongdoing by the president . No. In fact i would just point out that Richard Nixon and bill clinton and President Trump in 2019 the full house authorized those impeachment inquiries. Lev parnas sent a letter that was addressed to Chairman Comer that said the narrative you are seeking for this investigation has been proven false many times over by a wide array of respected sources. There is simply no merit to investigating this matter any further. He says please abandon this effort to investigate the bidens which is nothing more than a wild goose chase. He was Rudy Giulianis rights hand man trying to put together a case back in 2019 that joe biden had done something wrong. Do you agree that given that the evidence weve looked at over the eight months comes down to this discredited burisma conspiracy theory, we should hear from those responsible for concocting the story in the first place, specifically lev parnas and Rudy Giuliani . Absolutely. What did you think about the fact the First Act Of The Committee in its Impeachment Investigation was to reject the idea of Subpoenaing Lev Parnas and Rudy Giuliani, who are at the heart of the story thats the basis for impeachment . I think if there is going to be an investigation into the president , all the evidence, that is to say all the participants, anyone that has knowledge should be spoken to. We have lots of colleagues on this committee and off the committee who have called for the impeachment of joe biden, who also voted against impeaching donald trump for inciting a violent insurrection against the union. Hundreds of people have gone to jail in subsidiary acts under the umbrella of that insur insurrectionary process. The theory that will say i will vote to impeach joe biden for offenses unstated and evidence unknown but i will oppose and vote against the impeachment of donald trump for inciting a violent insurrection against the union, which is something that concurrent bipartisan majorities voted for in the house and senate . I cannot. I might just add as a law professor, that one of the things i suggest to my students in trying to assess the constitutionality of any governmental action is to take the names out. Switch the names or switch the Political Parties and see if the outcome is the same. In joe biden had incited an incident against the union and fight like hell would you consider that in the ensuing mayhem and chaos to be an impeachable event or not . Absolutely. To your mind in apply the law to the facts have you seen any evidence that joe biden has done anything remotely comparable to what donald trump did which earned him his impeachment in the bipartisan vote of the house. I have not. I might add with all due respect i heard the phrase biden family many, many times. I dont know who the biden family is. I dont know who is being referenced when people talk about the biden family. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i would like to move for unanimous consent to introduce lev parnass record into this committee records. Jason smith from missouri for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. It is amazing to be sitting in your committee. A pleasure to be here. Yesterday we had a Committee Release over 700 pages of documents that came from the two i. R. S. Whistleblowers. Based on the last Oversight Hearing when they presented before this committee, where members both republican and democrat asked for Additional Information and we brought it forward. The other side of the aisle actually mentioned trump a whole lot more than they ever mentioned biden. It is happening over here, too. I think it is consistent both in the ways and Means Committee and in the Oversight Committee. Miss connor, my question is yesterday the ways and Means Committee voted to release Additional Information provided by gary shapley and mr. Ziegler. One of the documents shows that assistant u. S. Attorney leslie wolf ordered investigators not to pursue leads into possible Campaign Finance violations. We know that over 2 million of Hunter BidensTax Liabilities were paid off by a Big Democrat Party donor and hollywood lawyer who is named kevin morris. James biden, the president s brother, told investigators he did not know how hunter biden even knew this individual. But was later asked to thank him for the payment, quote, on behalf of the family. The biden family. The family. So how would such payments that essentially pushed under the rug the president s sons tax problems, at least for one year, be considered a Campaign Finance violation on part of the Biden Campaign . Thank you for the question. I have no idea. I thought you were going to ask me why would leslie wolf not look into that. The answer to that is probably if its a Campaign Contribution then it im me indicates political person number one and that apparently is a big barrier that had been created throughout this entire investigation. As far as it being a Campaign Contribution, that 2 million was intended to satisfy the liabilities for two years of Hunter Bidens late filed and unpaid taxes. Is it unusual for an Assistant Prosecutor to say dont look at this individual, this person is off limits . As i mentioned in my Opening Statement thats how investigations develop. The agents follow the leads wherever they take them. In this case, a legitimate investigation was being done of money that was being paid and for the assistant u. S. Attorney, who is orchestrating the investigation, to say dont look at that anymore, i think the reason is related to another instruction of hers that she didnt want to get Public Integrity involved. She was looking beyond hunter biden and into a person whose activities would be subject to Public Integrity. Since you worked tax division for d. O. J. If kevin morris gave a gift of 2 million to help pay off Hunter Bidens debts, who has to report that on their taxes . Does mr. Morris have to report it or does hunter biden . As i understand it. The parties are claiming that it is a loan and that hunter biden will pay it back between 2025 and 2027. Would that have to be reported on tax records . If its a loan, no. But i havent seen any of the documentation of that loan. That is one im sure mr. Dab inski can tell you calling something a loan can claim its not taxable income. One quick question. We uncovered yesterday that the biden Family Associates received over 20 million from 23 Different Countries if they had business ties to or communications with. They also had over 20 shell llcs where they would transfer money in and out. If you were still sitting in your office in d. O. J. S Tax Division would this web of activities concern you . I would make sure that my prosecutors were concerned about it. Thank you. Chair recognizes miss norton from the district of columbia. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Professor gerhardt. You referenced alexander am ill tons warning about the dangers of Trivializing Impeachment through petty partisanship. Let me ask you, mr. Gerhardt, do you think that initiating an Impeachment Inquiry against President Biden without any evidence of wrongdoing by the president meets any basic standard of proof . Not credible proof at all in my opinion. In fact, i think one thing to keep in mind about a hearing like this or any kind of Impeachment Inquiry is the critical importance of Building Public trust. And that gets built, in part, on the basis of cr