re-election and running for election. and everywhere i go the same thing. thank you for trying to find out the truth. thank you for trying to stop this cottage industry of influence peddling. that's what this investigation is all about. the purpose of this investigation, if you go back to the very first press conference, was to get the truth to the american people. because the american people didn't have the truth. they didn't have the truth. the media, when we started this investigation, the laptop was russian disinformation. the bidens had legitimate businesses. joe never talked to any of the people that sent him money. none of this happened while he was president. all that have we have proven is false. we have been very effective in getting the truth to the american people. my job as chairman of the oversight committee is to prevent influence peddling from happening in the future. that's always been the purpose of this investigation. to create legislation hopefully bipartisan, that defines influence peddling and stops it from happening. we need to stop the menendezs

and the bidens from continuing to enrich themselves in our public offices. thank you very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy visit ncicap.org] mr. raskin: good morning, everybody. the constitutional standard for impeachment is treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. we are still waiting for our republican friends to articulate what they think the high crime and misdemeanor is in this case. we have gotten extremely far afield from the constitutional standard. nobody can state on their side what they think joe biden did even as a private citizen that would constitute some kind of

criminal offense. their most recent star witness, alexander smirnoff, is now in jail, being held as a flight risk after being indicted by the special counsel who was named by donald trump. david weiss, for lying to the f.b.i. and leaving a false documentary record. this has been a comedy of errors from the beginning. all of the revelations that are in the legal pleadings filed by david weiss now give a very strong whiff of russian intelligence operation. so i think that our colleagues would do best at this point to fold up the circus tent and allow us to focus on something that would be a benefit to the american people. >> you're particularly interested in hearing hunter biden's side? mr. raskin: every other witness that we have spoken to has

confirmed this basic conclusion, that joe biden was not involved in hunter biden's business ventures. he did not profit from hunter biden's business ventures, and he rendered no official favors or benefits to hunter biden's business ventures. i hope that we will have those propositions, if we are satisfied that he and the dozen other witnesses we have spoken to are telling a coherent, credible story then this thing is over. >> two months ago mr. biden said he would testify in public in front of cameras. where are you on that now? go back to that -- mr. raskin: the majority has rejected that. this is where we are. >> do you think they are -- mr. raskin: i think this investigation is over at this point. there is really nothing left to pursue. but hunter biden cheerfully

volunteered to go before the whole world and our colleagues on the republican side did not want that. they wanted today's behind the closed door proceeding and those what we are doing now. >> republicans mentioned they have more beyond what -- mr. raskin: there is always a promise of more evidence. i remember when loft was the star witness who was going to produce the bombshell revelation. he's on the lam being searched for by the u.s. government for his crimes. the most recent witness to implode is of course alexander smirnoff who started the whole thing with the false allegation that pwer reuz ma had given $10 million in illegal praoeubs to joe biden -- president bidens t,

hunter biden. david weiss, who donald trump had appointed u.s. attorney, and is the special counsel in the hunter biden case. let's remember, there is an entire special counsel appointed just to deal with hunter biden. his tax charges and gun charges. so all of this is a complete sideshow. if somebody thinks that there is some high crime or misdemeanor relating to joe biden, they should tell us what it is. so far we haven't heard anything. sir. >> donald trump was impeached twice. [indiscernible] mr. raskin: i'm not sure i followed the question. >> the impeachment is more

complicated. is it two separate -- [indiscernible] mr. raskin: well, impeachments like criminal prosecutions follow people's criminal conduct. donald trump incited a violent insurrection and an attempt to overthrow a presidential election. and he was impeached by the house of representatives in a bipartisan impeachment, and there was a 57-43 vote in the senate to convict him. he escaped conviction by 10 votes. he beat the constitutional spread of 2/3 majority. there were commanding bipartisan, bicameral majorities defining the constitutional fact that he engaged in an insurrection against the 2020 presidential election. he didn't accept them to this day he does not accept fact that joe biden beat him by more than seven million votes. and the electoral college.

this absurd impeachment investigation is just a continuation of donald trump's refusal to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. and i think everybody can understand that for what it is. remember, there were 60 federal and state court decisions rejecting every claim of electoral fraud and corruption that were advanced by donald trump and the republicans after that election. still election denialism is at the heart of donald trump's political program and also at the heart of this attack on president biden today. it's a shameful spectacle, i think. i haven't seen any documents on that, but this is the convicted felon who is in prison who they went to see. he's another star witness in the

lineup of alleged felons and fugitives who make up the lineup for the republicans. that's right. i haven't seen any documentation on that. i'm happy to look at it. again, nobody can tell us what is the high crime or misdemeanor. we told them, sir, that donald trump incite add violent insurrection. we mobilized all of the public evidence. and then there was all kinds of evidence that came out later in the bipartisan january 6 committee that documented exactly what donald trump had done. what did joe biden do? nobody can tell us. >> one of the revelations from the testimony was that joe bidek

about business. do you think that's appropriate that then vice president biden is meeting with the business partners? mr. raskin: first of all, the standard for impeachment is not what i think is appropriate or not appropriate. the standard for impeachment is high crimes and misdemeanors. felony offenses, major public offenses against the public of good. you are talking about a time when joe biden was a private citizen. hunter biden's always been a private citizen. and my republican colleagues are the last ones to try to do anything about lobbying and the culture of political influence in washington. if you want to have serious hearings about that, let's have serious hearings about that. i urged chairman comber for us to have a serious -- chairman comer for us to have serious about the domestic emoluments clauses during the trump administration. we release add report last year documenting with receipts nearly $8 million that donald trump

collected while he was in office from china, including cesc from saudi arabia, from other foreign governments. that raises a profound problem. hunter biden has never been in office. during the whole time that they are focused on thissings have, joe biden -- on this investigation, joe biden wasn't in office. he had finished his term as vice president and he had not announced any plans to run for president yet. it is a wild goose chase related to the actions of private citizens. all right. thank you very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy visit ncicap.org] >> book tv every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 8 p.m. eastern, journalist garrett graph, looks at research done by government agencies and

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