President Donald Trump has wondered aloud about Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his father was serving as vice president of the United States.
But apparently Democrats don’t think that’s a big deal.
‘Not a relevant witness’
Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who serves as chairman of the Judiciary Committee and is one of the newly named House impeachment managers, said Hunter Biden is “not a relevant witness” in the upcoming Senate impeachment trial.
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Rep. Jerry Nadler on if impeachment managers are prepared if GOP senators call on Hunter Biden to testify:
"We are prepared…Anybody, like Hunter Biden, who has no information about any of that [claims against Pres. Trump] is not a relevant witness." pic.twitter.com/ZmvuaLauTW
— Chloe Salsameda (@ChloeSalsameda) January 15, 2020
A reporter asked Nadler, who appeared alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “Republicans have suggested they would like to call Hunter Biden. Are you and the managers prepared for that?”
Pelosi asked Nadler to reply.
“Let me say we are prepared, but the relevant question is relevance,” Nadler said.
Pelosi: ‘The president violated his oath of office’
Then House Speaker Pelosi added, “Let me just say that what is at stake here is the Constitution of the United States. This is what an impeachment is about. The president violated his oath of office, undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections, tried to use the appropriations process as his private ATM machine to grant or withhold funds granted by Congress in order to advance his personal and political advantage. That is what the senators should be looking into.”
President Trump said in a July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky, “I would like you to do us a favor though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.”
This was one day removed from Robert Mueller testifying that his investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Nadler is simply wrong that Hunter Biden is irrelevant because he lacks evidence on the call or aid. Under the federal rules, he is relevant to the defense not the prosecution. Otherwise, alibi or defense witnesses would be largely barred. https://t.co/TyQSaE5efl
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 15, 2020
Trump told Zelensky that “a lot of it — the election interference — supposedly started in Ukraine: I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation.”
“I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people,” Trump continued. “I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.”
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Zelensky later brought up “investigations.”
“I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you,” he told President Trump.
Trump responded, “The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”