Impeach Joe Biden

 

Articles of Impeachment Filed Against Biden by GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Newly-elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Jan. 21 announced she has introduced articles of impeachment against the new president, Joe Biden.

The Articles of Impeachment concern Biden’s alleged actions involving a “quid pro quo” deal in Ukraine and alleged abuse of power “by allowing his son, Hunter Biden, to siphon off cash from America’s greatest enemies Russia and China,” Greene’s office announced in a statement just a day after Biden was sworn in as the 46th U.S. president.

The move comes less than a month into Greene’s first term in Congress. Democrats control both the House and Senate, so it is unlikely that the attempt to impeach Biden, a Democrat, will succeed.

“President Joe Biden is unfit to hold the office of the Presidency,” Greene said in a statement. “His pattern of abuse of power as President Obama’s Vice President is lengthy and disturbing. President Biden has demonstrated that he will do whatever it takes to bail out his son, Hunter, and line his family’s pockets with cash from corrupt foreign energy companies.”

She added, “President Biden is even on tape admitting to a quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government threatening to withhold $1,000,000,000 in foreign aid if they did not do his bidding. President Biden residing in the White House is a threat to national security and he must be immediately impeached.”

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Former Vice President Joe Biden (L) and his son Hunter Biden at the Duke Georgetown NCAA college basketball game in Washington on Jan. 30, 2010. (Nick Wass/AP Photo)

At an event in 2018, Biden said that in 2016 he had threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid from Ukraine unless then-President Petro Poroshenko fired Viktor Shokin. Shokin at the time was investigating Burisma, an energy company in Ukraine for which Hunter was a board member from 2014 to at least 2018.

Biden in 2016 was responsible for overseeing anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.

“I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden recounted at an event at the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018. “Well, son of a [expletive], he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

Hunter Biden has said he consulted for Burisma but critics have suggested he was not doing actual work in return for his substantial income—an allegation he denies.

Biden previously denied using his influence to get Shokin fired to prevent him from investigating Hunter’s involvement. Biden claimed that the reason that Shokin was fired was because Shokin was inept.

In direct contrast to Biden’s claims, Shokin said in a sworn affidavit obtained by investigative reporter John Solomon that he was told that he was fired in March 2016 because Biden wasn’t pleased with the investigations into Burisma.

Greene alleges that Joe Biden abused his power as the country’s vice president by allowing his son “to influence the domestic policy of a foreign nation and accept various benefits—including financial compensation—from foreign nationals in exchange for certain favors.”

“During his father’s vice presidency, Hunter Biden built many business relationships with foreign nationals and received millions of dollars from foreign sources, seemingly in exchange for access to his father. The financial transactions which Hunter engaged in illustrates serious counterintelligence and extortion concerns relating to Hunter Biden and his family,” Greene’s office said.

“President Biden gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government. Through blatant nepotism, he enabled his son to influence foreign policy and financially benefit as a result of his role as Vice President.

“He supported his son engaging in collusion with Chinese Communist party-linked officials. He allowed his son to trade appointments with his father and other high-ranking administration officials in exchange for financial compensation. He permitted his son to take money from Russian oligarchs, including Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow,” it continued.

The New York Post last year obtained emails and messages from a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden, allegedly showing that he had tried to arrange a meeting between himself, his father, and a top executive at Burisma. Both Bidens have denied that a meeting took place, with Joe Biden saying that the story by the outlet was “another smear campaign.”

Other emails obtained by the outlet allegedly show that Hunter Biden was engaged in deals involving a Chinese energy giant with ties to the Chinese military–the now-bankrupt Chinese oil giant CEFC China Energy.

Tony Bobulinski, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, announced during a press conference in Nashville in October 2020 that Hunter and his associates brought him into a deal with CEFC China Energy in 2017.

A federal appeals court in New York in late December 2020 upheld the bribery conviction of Patrick Ho, a Chinese businessman and the former head of a think tank funded by CEFC China Energy.

Hunter is currently under federal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware over his taxes. The details and nature of the investigation have not been publicly disclosed. The office said it couldn’t comment on ongoing investigations.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a friend and adviser to Biden, said in December 2020 that Joe Biden will not interfere in the investigation. The then-president elect said that he was “confident” his son did nothing wrong, and later said that accusations against Hunter Biden are “foul play.”

 

By Mimi Nguyen Ly

January 21, 2021

The Importance Of An Independent Judiciary

 

Study urges Congress to act to ensure independence of federal judges

Thu, 01/21/2021

LAWRENCE — Former President Donald Trump's removal of prominent officials not willing to do his bidding grabbed headlines throughout his tenure, but he also took less well-publicized steps to bring the federal bureaucracy under his control by dismantling key parts of the civil service. A University of Kansas law professor argues in a new study that these efforts, coupled with recent Supreme Court rulings, threaten the independence of a key group of agency adjudicators. The study urges Congress to take action to prevent cronyism and political bias in agency adjudications.

Richard Levy, J.B. Smith Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the KU School of Law, and Robert Glicksman of George Washington University have published a study in the Minnesota Law Review examining the independence of administrative law judges, or ALJs. In the study, the authors outline the attacks on the independence of ALJs in federal agencies that threaten to politicize the appointment and removal of officers intended to be impartial decision-makers. They recommend a legislative solution to ensure independence that would benefit both major political parties.

The basic separation of powers between the executive, judicial and legislative branches in American government is well understood. However, there is overlap when implementing law and determining how the law applies in given situations, the authors wrote. These situations arise frequently in federal agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and Social Security Administration. The agencies appoint adjudicators, including ALJs, who make rulings, but conflicts of interest can arise when agencies or employers prefer one policy but the law requires another.

“The question is, how do you properly balance the idea that the president is at the head of the executive branch and has responsibility to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed with the idea that due process and fundamental fairness in agency adjudications requires an impartial decision-maker?” Levy said.

Levy and Glicksman described recent Supreme Court decisions that have supported a strong unitary executive theory that gives the president greater control over the appointment and removal of officers in the executive branch, as well as executive actions by Trump that exempt ALJs from civil service merit selection requirements and weaken the statutory against removal for reasons other than good cause. Civil service protections for federal officers and employees have consistently expanded to prevent political patronage or a spoils system rewarding cronyism. As applied to ALJs, these protections were essential to ensure presidents and political appointees could not appoint unqualified or biased adjudicators or take disciplinary action against ALJs who refused to toe the line in their decisions.

“When we talk about a ‘war,’ we’re essentially talking about a war on the civil service,” Levy said. “The Trump administration’s argument is those protections led to the creation of the so-called deep state.”

The authors present an in-depth examination of the executive order removing ALJs from the established appointment system in which the most highly qualified judges as determined by civil service testing were presented as candidates for judicial openings. They determine the move was legally valid, yet opens the door to cronyism and the appointment of unqualified loyalists to such positions. They also discuss a recent Justice Department memo indicating that the department would only defend good cause removal protections for ALJs if those provisions allow for removal those who fail “to follow instructions” or in essence, make rulings favorable to the position of the executive branch.

“At the very least we have a looming constitutional crisis for ALJs, and a lack of protections for them for appointment and removals,” Levy said. “It seems to us a substantial threat to ALJ independence and judicial integrity.”

Given that threat, the authors argue a statutory response is required. They call for the creation of an independent ALJ corps using the “central panel” model that is already in place in numerous states’ laws. The approach would allow for independence of ALJs that adjudicate federal agency questions, while allowing for final review from the agencies. That would restore judicial independence and retain the agency’s ultimate policy authority and expertise, Levy said.

Congress could enact a law achieving those ends in a nonpartisan fashion, the authors said. Doing so would be mutually beneficial as it could prevent cronyism from whatever party is in power, retaliation upon changes of administration or unforeseen abuses of policy enacted by a preceding party.

“I think we have to start restoring safeguards that have been dismantled by partisanship,” Levy said.

While the hyperpartisan nature of American politics may make such an event difficult, it is not impossible, the authors wrote. Levy and Glicksman have already presented their arguments in a webinar sponsored by the Administrative Conference of the United States and been contacted by the National Conference of the Administrative Law Judiciary and helped draft a report in support of a resolution by the American Bar Association in support of a central panel of federal ALJs.

“Ultimately, the independence of administrative adjudication is a critical protection for the rule of law. Although other recent threats to the rule of law may deservedly garner the headlines, we should not lose sight of the critical role that impartial agency adjudication plays,” the authors wrote. “Taking reasonable steps toward securing independent and impartial adjudication by agencies is a nonpartisan issue that Congress can and should address.”