Democrats opened an impeachment inquiry against President Trump for allegedly withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for a personal favor. They couldn’t prove this and ultimately didn’t include this in their articles of impeachment. Joe Biden on the other hand has readily admitted to threatening to withhold aid to Ukraine in exchange for personal favors and may be called to testify in Trump’s Senate impeachment trial. Biden says he will ignore any subpoena to testy, which is obstruction of Congress and one of the things democrats actually did impeach President Trump for.
In early December, before the sham impeachment, NPR gave Mumbly Joe a hypothetical:
“President Trump is in the process of being impeached. The Senate trial is pending. Republicans have suggested that they might call you or your son, Hunter Biden. If you are subpoenaed, would you comply?” NPR asked.
“No. I’m not going to let you take the eye off the ball here. Everybody knows what this is about. This is a Trump gambit he plays. Whenever he’s in trouble, he tries to find someone else to divert attention to,” replied Joe.
“But the question is, would you comply with the subpoena?” NPR asked again.
“No, I will not yield to what everybody is looking for here,” said Biden.
Friday, after President Trump had been impeached for obstruction of Congress, Biden was asked again if he would honor a subpoena to testify in front of the Senate by the Des Moines Register:
Biden said in early December he wouldn’t comply with a subpoena by the Senate, and confirmed that statement Friday in an interview with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board. He has not been subpoenaed, but Trump’s allies have floated the idea.
Testifying before the Senate on the matter would take attention away from Trump and the allegations against him, Biden said.
“What are you going to cover? You guys are going to cover for three weeks anything that I said. And (Trump’s) going to get away. You guys buy into it all the time. Not a joke … Think what it’s about. It’s all about what he does all the time, his entire career. Take the focus off. This guy violated the Constitution. He said it in the driveway of the White House. He acknowledged he asked for help,” Biden said.
That was certainly a rambling incoherent answer, but Biden is saying that he will ignore a subpoena to testify. He also let it slip that if he were t testify, it would let Trump off the hook, which is probably something he didn’t mean to say out loud.
After it was pointed out that President Trump was impeached by the House democrats for ignoring their subpoenas (actually he challenged subpoenas in court and the democrats didn’t want to wait for the rulings) Biden sought to clarify his position:
I want to clarify something I said yesterday. In my 40 years in public life, I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office — unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence — cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 28, 2019
But I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial. That is the point I was making yesterday and I reiterate: this impeachment is about Trump’s conduct, not mine.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 28, 2019
The subpoenas should go to witnesses with testimony to offer to Trump’s shaking down the Ukraine government — they should go to the White House.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 28, 2019
While it may seem like Biden has flip-flopped and would honor a subpoena to testify, he qualified that with whether he thought the subpoena was “legitimate” or not. Since he already doesn’t think there’s any legitimacy to it, he simply clarified that he will ignore any subpoena to testify.
The big picture here is, that in impeaching President Trump, democrats have given people another reason to not waste their vote on Joe Biden. He is guilty of the things democrats have impeached Trump for and more. If by some miracle Biden won the presidency, he’d instantly be impeached. Why would anyone vote for a guy that they know is going to be removed from office the second he takes the oath of office?
