A Black Hole

Republicans are hell-bent on investigating Hunter Biden's laptop. Jennifer Rubin writes:

Right-wing House Republicans have left little doubt that they want to spend the bulk of their time and energy investigating phony conspiracies and made-up scandals. Their main obsession appears to be Hunter Biden, whose very name has become a buzzword in right-wing media. The contents of one of his laptops, revealed in 2020, have inspired a fantastical conspiracy theory that has been comprehensively debunked by, among others, Asha Rangappa, a senior lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs and former FBI agent.

Obviously, there is no legitimate basis for congressional “oversight” of the matter. And that brings us to the current faceoff between the Republican chairmen of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, on one side, and 50 or so former intelligence officials, on the other.

In October 2020, these officials crafted a statement that appeared in Politico alleging that appearance of the laptop and emails purporting to relate to Hunter Biden’s time on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” 

Perhaps Republicans imagine the former intelligence officials were put up to signing the statement pointing the finger at Russia as part of a Democrat plot to mislead voters. (Talk about projection!) Whatever the reason for this GOP fishing expedition, it would be a dangerous threat to the First Amendment if Congress could haul in for questioning any private citizen (as the former officials were at the time) to explain an op-ed or open letter.

And, ironically, it would be an illegitimate and inappropriate use of congressional power — a weaponization of government — if every president’s family members and their associates and defenders could be summoned to testify about a made-up controversy.

None of this, however, bothers the Republicans. Their party has become a black hole. Lots of people and things are sucked into it and into oblivion. And nothing good comes out of it.

Image: Popular Mechanics