Republicans need to start exercising their power to get real answers, and real coverage of the two biggest scandals the media isn’t telling you about

The GOP may lack power over government to get their will via legislation, but they do have power over Congress to exert their will via blocking it.

It’s not easy being in the minority in the United States government.  Power, within limits set by the Constitution, is normally wielded by the majority party, especially when that party controls the Presidency.  Right now, the Democrats have the upper hand with Joe Biden in the White House, a slim but meaningful majority in the Senate, and an equally slim minority in the House.  The Republicans, meanwhile, control only the House of Representatives by a handful of votes, and even should they pass meaningful legislation it will likely die a quick death in the Senate, forget making it all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue.  Control over the House has, however, enabled Republicans to launch investigations into two key, interrelated areas.  First, they have begun examining the behavior of the Department of Justice and the perceived double standard applied in the treatment of Presidents Donald Trump and Joseph Biden.  Second, they are probing the complex business relationships the President’s on, Hunter Biden had with various foreign entities and their potential connection to the President himself.  The results so far have been explosive to anyone paying attention.  Less than two weeks ago, for example, we learned that the FBI had a Confidential Human Source who told them directly that both Joe and Hunter Biden received a combined $10 million in bribes from the Ukrainian oil and natural gas company, Burisma.  The FBI and the Department of Justice, for reasons that remain entirely unclear, chose to suppress this knowledge from their own investigators and the American public even as former President Donald Trump was impeached for pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate the matter themselves.  The news did not get any better for President Biden this week, when his son’s former business partner, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden joined no fewer than 20 calls with their clients to advance the “brand.”  He recounted how the aforementioned Burisma wanted to speak to “DC” to have Victor Shokin, the general prosecutor investigating potential corruption, fired.  President Biden himself went on to brag about that episode in public in 2018.  Similarly, multiple whistleblowers from both the FBI and IRS have come forward to state their belief that Department of Justice investigations into these and other matters have been tainted by a leadership more interested in protecting the Biden family than uncovering the facts.

In any normal era, as in less than twenty years ago, these revelations would have generated wall-to-wall coverage and front page news across every major media outlet in the country, if not the world.  These are stories tailor made for enterprising journalists looking to uncover malfeasance at the highest levels and the lengths some will take to suppress the truth.  Today, however, the Republicans’ combined effort has generated only a handful of headlines and no substantial coverage.  CNN, for example, had only a single story on Mr. Archer’s testimony.  The headline says it all:  Former business partner says Hunter Biden sold ‘illusion’ of access, sources say.  To be entirely clear about their position, the second paragraph noted “The source also reiterated that Archer provided no evidence connecting President Joe Biden to any of his son’s foreign business dealings” while ignoring the claim that the President advanced the “brand” on no fewer than 20 phone calls and that Burisma called “DC” (wonder who that could be?) to ensure Prosecutor General Shokin was fired, which happened a few months later, coincidentally in their opinion, I guess.  Nor are they remotely interested in the fact that candidate Biden said emphatically on multiple occasions that he’d “never” spoken to anyone in his family about their business dealings at all, much less participated in them, meaning at the very least he has been caught in a brazen lie.  One would think that warrants a basic fact check, but the placement of this non-story by CNN might tell you even more about their priorities, especially after they colluded with government officials to suppress this information during the 2020.  I had to search to find the latest story; it wasn’t anywhere near the home page.  Instead, the focus, as usual, was on former President Trump where there were no fewer than five articles prominently placed on the top left of the home page as of 4.45 PM on Tuesday even before the new indictments related to January 6, “Despite Trump’s legal woes, half of the US plans to vote for him. Here’s why,” “Live updates: Grand jury investigating 2020 election interference has finished for the day,” “Breaking news:  Trump-backed candidate for Michigan attorney general faces state charges over alleged voting machine plot after 2020 election,” “Donald Trump’s criminal cases, in one place,” and “Trump dominates in stunning new poll.”  As I have noted, it’s as if Joe Biden isn’t President at all and Trump were still in office.  Whatever the case, any Republican or conservative who continues to believe any revelation, however stunning, is going to break through this blue media wall appears to be seriously misguided, if not less observant than the aging coon hound laying on the other side of my desk.  There is nothing, and I repeat nothing that can come from any normal investigation or line of inquiry that will prompt the media from its position as supine as the aforementioned hound.  They are not interested in the truth, only their role as guardians of Democrat and establishment politicians and the increasingly woke nonsense that passes for rational thought.

This is a fact that will not change short of indictment by the Department of Justice, which will never happen given that Attorney General Merrick Garland is in charge and the Special Counsel he picked to lead the investigation into something as basic as the former President’s handling of classified documents might as well be in the witness protection program for all he’s been seen since.  We can assume, however, from the whistleblowers that none of these people deserve the benefit of the doubt.  Therefore, something more dramatic is required on behalf of Republicans to force the issue.  The GOP may lack power over government to get their will via legislation, but they do have power over Congress to exert their will via blocking it.  Between controlling the House and the minority-friendly rules in the Senate, they can, in fact, shut the entire institution down for as long as they wish while they demand satisfactory answers from the respective parties.  The Democrats and the media would, of course, cry foul, accusing the opposition party of holding democracy itself hostage, but that would be to the Republicans benefit if they can message consistently on the reasoning:  $10 million dollars.  A bribe. We need to know right now what happened with this $10 million dollars.  Right here, it says Joe Biden took $5 million and his son another $5 million.   This is the FBI’s own document.  It says the President of the United States and his family took a $10 million bribe.  Surely, you aren’t suggesting we can continue to operate the government if the President is corrupt and the FBI knew it?  All we are asking for is a few basic answers.  First, of the FBI:  What did they do with this information when they received it?  Was it corroborated or did they sit on it, and who knew what, when?  Why are you not concerned about potential corruption at the highest levels of government, especially after the President himself has lied about it multiple times?  Of course, the Department of Justice will claim that they cannot comment on an ongoing investigation, but that has become simply a dodge they use to hide the truth whenever convenient.  There is no law that prevents transparency in a situation that is potentially critical to the future of the republic.  The Department of Justice is subject to oversight by Congress, and they cannot simply deny this Constitutional obligation because of their internal prerogatives, though they have gotten away with precisely that for years now.

In the interim, Democrats, government apparatchiks, and the mainstream media have denied the existence of a double standard of justice while studiously avoiding any and all evidence suggesting that is the case.  Conservatives believe the evidence is everywhere including in the recently rejected Hunter Biden plea deal, more on that in a moment, but whatever side of the political divide you straddle, the FBI’s document detailing the accusations of a Confidential Human Source is a smoking gun if ever there was one in this regard.  If the Department of Justice hid this information from investigators as multiple whistleblowers claimed under oath for whatever reason, they have obstructed their own investigation for reasons that could only be political.  Anyone interested in actually validating their own belief as to the credibility of the government, should be focused on this document almost to the exclusion of all else.  Putting this another way, other information gleaned from whistleblowers may be interesting and even potentially actionable, but it does not provide proof the same way knowing what became of this Confidential Human Source would.  It is interesting to compare the treatment of the Biden Family to former President Trump, who now faces well over two hundred years in prison after the latest indictment, more than one would get as a murderer, rapist, or child molester, but it is not definitive.  We can speculate how it is possible that Hunter Biden, a drug addict, who cheated the government out of at least a $1 million we know about, violated multiple laws regarding lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, and lied on an application for a gun permit, all felonies with jail time, was supposed to receive a misdemeanor with no jail time at all until the deal was rejected by an inquisitive jurist who noted that no agreement has ever been structured this way.  We can wonder how the scales of justice are such that these crimes are downgraded while a former President faces the absolute maximum sentences including creative uses of statues never before tried in this manner.  We can equally speculate as to why bad news for President Biden is seemingly always followed by a fresh indictment of the former President, and we can wonder how that might be more than coincidence, but unfortunately for my fellow conservatives, that’s not the same as proving it.  However, if the Department of Justice failed to pursue information regarding a $10 million bribe vigorously while indicting the former President on charges that many consider specious, it would be revealed without question that a double standard exists.  There would be no further debate on the matter ever again.  The only question would be what to do about it.

Therefore, it is essential that Republicans get creative in their use of minority power, beginning with shutting down Congress tomorrow.  Of course, they will not do this.  I might be as wishful as those who think something could happen that would prompt the media from their slumber, but one can hope.