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CONTACT: 

Emilia Rowland, Emilia.Rowland@mail.house.gov;

Vaibhav Vijay, Vaibhav.Vijay@mail.house.gov;

Summer Lee Calls Out Complete Lack of Evidence in Republicans’ Sham “Impeachment” President Biden in Oversight Committee Hearing

Washington, DC — In today’s sham impeachment hearing, Rep. Lee pressed House Republicans for continuing to waste Congressional resources on an investigation  that has yet to uncover even a modicum of evidence supporting their claims that President Biden committed an impeachable offense. Rep. Lee pointed out that Committee Republican’s star witness, Tony Bobulinski’s claims about meeting with Joe Biden were overblown and over exaggerated and that his purported evidence had been debunked and dismissed.  You can read Rep. Lee’s full line of questioning below. This is the second impeachment hearing Rep. Lee has participated in in Oversight, the first being in September. 

Watch full video here:

Rep. Lee’s full line of questioning:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think it’s fair to say at this point that Republicans on this Committee are relying on Mr. Bobulinski as their star witness—the only… “fact witness”… they have brought, in person, before this Committee.

So, I think we’d all expect that Mr. Bobulinski would have extensive, inside knowledge about the involvement they allege that President Biden had in Hunter’s business ventures.

As Mr. Parnas can vouch for, previous impeachment inquiries relied on whistleblowers and witnesses with intimate details of what went on, you know, firsthand accounts of high crimes and misdemeanors.  

You could point to exactly what the allegations were and understand what was going on. There were laid out chains of events pointing to a named crime: lying under oath, obstruction of justice, abuse of power, incitement of insurrection.

Yet we’re left floundering here with zero direction and zero real evidence while we watch this kangaroo court struggle and continue on.

And today we have Mr. Bobulinski whose biggest contribution is that he had quote “multiple” meetings with Joe Biden. 

But let’s be clear:  he spoke with Joe a grand total of two times in the span of less than 24 hours in 2017—and each was short.

One in public, in the bar of a hotel and then for a few minutes backstage of the Milken conference after Biden spoke about the efforts to fight cancer, which took the life of his son Beau.  

I think we also need to clarify that while Mr. Bobulinski is all of a sudden, today claiming that they talked business, but at no point did he mention this during his deposition, under oath, with this Committee.  

At two different points when asked about what was said in these conversations, Mr. Bobulinski’s account made clear that he had ZERO substantive business discussions with Joe Biden.  Mr. Bobulinski described those conversations twice during his transcribed interview—and both times he provided the same account.

I’ll read from the transcript of your interview, Mr. Bobulinski—you stated that you and Joe Biden discussed your, quote “family background in detail,” as well as the Biden family’s background and Joe Biden’s quote “appreciation for the military.”

Based on YOUR OWN account, you had ZERO discussion of CEFC – the chinese energy company. You had ZERO discussion on shares of equity, or capitalization of this failed business venture. 

Based on YOUR OWN account, you simply exchanged pleasantries about your families and shared values  – the kind of small talk any person would make if they had the opportunity to meet the former vice president of the United states – and moved on.

Yet today, when my Republican colleagues are so desperate for actual evidence, magically that story changes.

And that’s really at the heart of everything we’re discussing today.

Mr. Bobulinski has also been pushing his texts and records as proof, yet the Wall Street Journal found that none of it showed any role for Joe Biden in Sinohawk Holdings and even Fox News reported that there was no evidence of business dealings involving Joe Biden.  

Mr. Bobulinski, would have us believe that everyone is a liar, except for him – and except for when HE’S under oath. That everyone misremembers, except for him and except for when HE’s under oath. The FBI, Wall Street Journal, his business associates – all liars. 

Republicans in this committee and the culture warriors on Fox news keep saying “look at the documents, look at the documents.” 

So let’s look – this purported investigation has received over 100,000 pages of documents and not a single one shows any evidence of any wrongdoing, much less an impeachable offense. 

And taking a step back, even if Joe Biden had discussed his son’s business venture with Tony Bobulinski in 2017—and this is rhetorical, so what? What would be the high crime or misdemeanor? What would be the impeachable offense?

We’re talking about what private citizen Hunter Biden was doing with his, at the time, private citizen dad.  

This impeachment inquiry is not about facts or evidence—it’s not even about impeachable offenses. It’s about keeping the American people distracted while we do nothing on reducing gun violence, nothing on lowering healthcare costs, nothing on reforming our criminal justice system.

This has been the least productive Congress in decades. We’re just now, in March, finally funding the government for this year. That’s shameful.

This unserious hearing is a waste of our time and our resources.

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Since taking office in January, Lee, who serves on the House Oversight Committee and Space, Science and Technology Committee, has delivered historic levels of federal investment totaling over $1 Billion brought back to Western PA, including over $200 million for infrastructure, over $50 million for affordable transit, and over $500 million to keep clean energy manufacturing at home in Pennsylvania. These investments will help improve Western Pennsylvania’s infrastructure and transit, ensure cleaner air and drinking water, lower housing costs, fund research institutions, fuel clean manufacturing, fund STEM innovation and entrepreneurship, boost workforce development, and create thousands of good paying union jobs.  Lee and her team have also delivered casework and constituent services to over 1,900 constituents with issues ranging from helping our seniors and disabled community access Medicare and social security to helping folks secure housing and helping families with immigration support and passports.

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