Without Joe Biden, This Impeachment Trial is a Farce

With remarkably little pushback from Republicans, Democrats have managed to convince the media (if not the country as a whole) that there is absolutely no reason that President Donald Trump should have been asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about the Bidens. This, they conclude (without any evidence) is all the proof we need to know that Trump was trying to interfere in the 2020 election and seek foreign help for his victory.

But until and unless President Trump and his defense team is allowed to explain exactly WHY the Bidens should be subject to investigation, this impeachment trial is nothing more than a partisan farce.

According to Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and the rest of the House impeachment managers, Biden’s conduct as vice president is beyond reproach. No matter how many times they say that, though, it doesn’t change the bizarre and suspicious facts of the case.

It doesn’t change the fact that Biden’s son, Hunter, had a cushy, $1 million-a-year job with a Ukrainian energy company despite having no relevant education or experience.

It doesn’t change the fact that Biden was Obama’s “point man” on Ukraine at the time that his son was working for Burisma.

And it doesn’t change the fact that Biden forced the Ukrainian leadership at the time to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin – the man in charge of investigating the corrupt Burisma company.

It is a travesty of justice that Democrats have prevented President Trump from putting on the actual evidence of his innocence. That evidence doesn’t come in the form of pretending like none of this ever happened; it comes from proving to the American people and the Senate that he was properly justified in worrying that the former vice president abused his power. It comes from putting Hunter and Joe Biden on the witness stand. It comes from making it clear that just because you happen to be running for president, you don’t get to have all of your prior wrongdoings swept under the rug.

Let’s be clear: You don’t have to believe that Joe Biden did anything wrong to support this path forward. Hell, maybe everything with Hunter and Viktor Shokin and the $1 billion in Ukraine funding was all on the up-and-up. Maybe Joe was just dutifully executing the wishes of the boss. If so, we’ll all be glad to hear tale of it on the floor of the Senate.

But even if Joe makes a convincing case for his own innocence, it doesn’t mean that Trump was out of bounds in demanding an investigation. He didn’t tell Zelensky to “make up dirt,” as Adam Schiff put it. He asked for an investigation. Plain and simple. That’s not too much to ask, and it is wholly in line with his duties as the American president.

There’s no reason that this defense should be barred from the trial. That it has been is further evidence that House Democrats have no interest in getting to the truth.