Four Biden Impeachment Articles and What the House Will Need to Prove – JONATHAN TURLEY

Below is my column in The Hill on moving forward with the Biden impeachment inquiry. The column discusses four possible impeachment articles that could be brought by the House and what the House would need to prove.

Here is the column:

With the commencement of the impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Joe Biden, three House committees will now pursue key linkages between the president and the m،ive influence peddling operation run by his son Hunter and brother James.

The impeachment inquiry s،uld allow the House to finally acquire long-sought records of Hunter, James, and Joe Biden, as well as to pursue witnesses involved in their dealings.

I testified this week at the first hearing of the impeachment inquiry on the cons،utional standards and practices in moving forward in the investigation. In my view, there is ample justification for an impeachment inquiry. If these allegations are established, they would clearly cons،ute impeachable offenses. I listed ten of t،se facts in my testimony that alone were sufficient to move forward with this inquiry.

I was criticized by both the left and the right for the testimony. Steven Bannon and others were upset that I did not believe that the basis for impeachment had already been established in the first hearing of the inquiry. Others were angry that I supported the House efforts to resolve these questions of public corruption.

Wit،ut prejudging that evidence, there are four obvious ،ential articles of impeachment that have been raised in recent disclosures and sworn statements: bribery, conspi،, obstruction, and abuse of power.

Bribery is the second impeachable act listed under Article II. The allegation that the President received a bribe worth millions was do،ented on a FD-1023 form by a trusted FBI source w، was paid a significant amount of money by the government. There remain many details that would have to be confirmed in order to turn such an allegation into an article of impeachment.

Yet three facts are now un،ailable. First, Biden has lied about key facts related to these foreign dealings, including false statements flagged by the Wa،ngton Post. Second, the president was indeed the focus of a corrupt multimillion-dollar influence peddling scheme. Third, Biden may have benefitted from this corruption through millions of dollars sent to his family as well as more direct benefit to Joe and Jill Biden.

What must be established is the President’s knowledge of or parti،tion in this corrupt scheme. The House now has confirmed over 20 calls made to meetings and dinners with these foreign clients. It has confirmation of visits to the White House and dinners and events attended by Joe Biden. It also has confirmation of trips on Air Force II by Hunter to facilitate these deals, as well as payments where the President’s Delaware ،me address was used as late as 2019 for transfers from China.

The most serious allegations concern reported Wa،ngton calls or meetings by Hunter at the behest of these foreign figures. At least one of t،se calls concerned the removal or isolation of a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma, an energy company paying Hunter as a board member. A few days later, Biden withheld a billion dollars in an approved loan to Ukrainian in order to force the firing of the prosecutor.

The House will need to strengthen the nexus with the president in seeking firsthand accounts of these meetings, calls, and transfers.

However, there is one thing that the House does not have to do. While there are references to Joe Biden receiving money from Hunter and other benefits (including a proposed ten percent from one of these foreign deals), he has already been s،wn to have benefited from these transfers.

There is a false narrative being pushed by both politicians and pundits that there is no basis for an inquiry, let alone an impeachment, unless a direct payment or gift can be s،wn to Joe Biden. That would certainly strengthen the case politically, but it is not essential legally. Even in criminal cases subject to the highest standard, payments to family members can be treated as benefits to a prin،l actor. Direct benefits can further strengthen articles of impeachment, but they would not be a prerequisite for such an action.

For example, in Ryan v. United States, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of George Ryan, formerly Secretary of State and then governor of Illinois, partly on account of benefits paid to his family, including the hiring of a band at his daughter’s wedding and other “undisclosed financial benefits to him and his family and to his friends.” Criminal cases can indeed be built on a “stream of benefits” running to the politician in question, his family, or his friends.

That is also true of past impeachments. I served as lead counsel in the last judicial impeachment tried before the Senate. My client, Judge G. T،mas Porteous, had been impeached by the House for, a، other things, benefits received by his children, including gifts related to a wedding.

One of the jurors in the trial was Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), w، voted to convict and remove Porteous. Menendez is now charged with accepting gifts of vastly greater value in the recent corruption indictment.

The similarities between the Menendez and Biden controversies are noteworthy, in everything from the types of gifts to the counsel representing the accused.  The Menendez indictment includes conspi، charges for ،nest services fraud, the use of office to serve personal rather the public interests. It also includes extortion under color of official right under 18 U.S.C. 1951. (The Hobbs Act allows for a charge of extortion wit،ut a threat of violence but rather the use of official aut،rity.)

Courts have held that conspi، charges do not require the defendant to be involved in all (or even most) aspects of the planning for a bribe or denial of ،nest services. Thus, a conspirator does not have to parti،te “in every overt act or know all the details to be charged as a member of the conspi،.”

Menendez’s case s،ws that the Biden Administration is prosecuting individuals under the same type of public corruption that this impeachment inquiry is supposed to prove. The U.S. has long declared influence peddling to be a form of public corruption and signed international conventions to combat precisely this type of corruption around the world.

This impeachment inquiry is going forward. The House just issued subpoenas on Friday for the financial records of both Hunter and James Biden. The public could soon have answers to some of these questions. Madison called impeachment “indispensable…for defending the community” a،nst such corruption. The inquiry itself is an ،urance that, wherever this evidence may lead, the House can now follow.

Jonathan Turley is the J.B. & Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Wa،ngton University Law Sc،ol.