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Again, this is unseemly but not unusual. Eric Cantor did not become the vice chairman of investment bank Moelis & Company because of his proficiency in giving sage investment advice. Chris Dodd was not named the chairman of the Motion Picture Academy of America because of his facility with filmic mise-en-scne. Billy Tauzin did not become the head of PhRMA because he had innovative ideas on how to run effective double-blind clinical trials. These well-connected politicians received these well-compensated sinecures because they possessed the very same skills that Hunter Biden brought to Burisma and nothing more. The vast majority of House members currently waving their arms and frantically shouting, How, oh how, did Hunter Biden manage this feat? How did this happen? fully plan to feather their nests in the exact same way once their careers in electoral politics are over. Its hard to imagine how deeply Hunter Bidens situation can be interrogated before everyone runs headlong into the underlying hypocrisy.

Beyond these This Town matters, theres a more pressing reason why a prolonged exploration of Hunter Biden is not likely to bear fruit: The presidents interest in Burisma has always been a con. Aside from exposing the fact that Hunter had successfully joined the ranks of everyone else playing an angle with their connections to power and influence, at the core of the controversy is only a mad gambit, hatched by the president and his cronies, to bring the likeliest Democratic presidential nominee low. Trumps defenders have attempted to paint the president as being uniquely interested in fighting foreign corruption, but hes always lacked a sincere interest in such pursuits. In fact, any cursory examination of Trumps records will reveal a deep and abiding interest in enabling such corruption, and numerous actions taken to further that interest, both in Ukraine and elsewhere.

There was never going to be a sincere investigation of Hunter Bidens activities. Trump was never going to seek regular status reports from Ukrainian officials or report findings to the relevant authorities. Trumps Biden exploit was to extort Volodymyr Zelenskiy into going on camerathe so-called public boxto announce an investigation, and then rely on the media to whip themselves into a rabid froth over the matter, exploiting the same crisis of adult newsroom supervision that led to the overwrought coverage of Hillary Clintons emails. Were it not for the whistleblower, we might today be living in this alternate reality. Instead, the whistleblower put paid to the extortion of Zelenskiy and ended anything that resembled a sincere interest in rooting out foreign corruption on the part of the president. Theres nothing else to get to the bottom ofwhat lies at the bottom is an aborted scam. This is literally the only thing that further inquiry will discover.

Which isnt to say that the staging of such an inquiry wont be perilous for Hunter Biden or the Democrats. The younger Biden has led something of a troubled life and would likely fare poorly under the kliegs of a congressional inquiry. And the medias aforementioned crisis of supervisory constancy creates the searing potential for a prolonged shitshow, where even a dedication to debunking dark insinuations might only perpetuate them.

As The Washington Posts Greg Sargent notes, the trajectory of Republican defenses of Trumpand the strategy they seem to be bent on should there be an impeachment trial in the Senatelooks to be one in which Republicans will attempt to accomplish some of the very same goals (smearing Joe Biden) that drove the whole corrupt scheme all along. Instead of Zelenskiy being shoved in the public box, it will be Republican electeds serving in that role.

Despite the fact that any further pressing into the Hunter Biden matter is at best going to reveal little more than the way Washington works, and at worst further bolster the case against Trump by putting yet another spotlight on the original con, there can be little doubt that Republicans are up for it. Back in September 2015, thenHouse Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy enthused about his partys efforts to subject that cycles Democratic front-runner to sustained investigation. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee, McCarthy said. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Trumps defenders will, similarly, gleefully implicate themselves in the furtherance of Trumps scam. The only real question remaining is whether the media will do a better job telling the truth throughout these upcoming fugazi hearings than they did during the Benghazi hearings.

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Republicans Prepare to Give Hunter Biden the Benghazi Treatment - The New Republic