Pelosi Comments On Probe
Lawmakers are calling out what they deem as a "clown show" hearing from the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
The hearing was called by Republicans to question IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler about accusations that Hunter Biden and his family were part of questionable business dealings.
In a Sunday interview with CNN's Dana Bash, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., slammed the hearing, calling it a "ridiculous clown show."
"I have respect for whistleblowers, but the fact is that, from the basis of that hearing, they didn't even have a fair shot at what they came to say in light of the clown show that was going on with pictures and Robert Kennedy and his ridiculous presentation," Pelosi said.
The pictures she was likely referring to were those of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the nephew of former President John Kennedy, who made an appearance at the hearing the following day.
During the Wednesday hearing, Ziegler told Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., that Hunter Biden, his family members, and business associates received over $17 million due to business dealings in China, Ukraine, and Romania.
Those deals included multimillion-dollar payments to Biden family-linked companies from 2014 to 2019, including $7.3 million from Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
Ziegler and Shapley both allege that officials at the Justice Department, FBI, and IRS interfered in the investigation into Hunter Biden and that decisions in the case were influenced by politics.
Democratic lawmakers have been quick to criticize the Republican-led hearing, accusing them of using the hearing as a way to malign Hunter Biden and President Biden's administration.
"It's clear they wanted to serve as a smokescreen for the Biden administration," Democratic Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer said in an interview.
"It's not the place of Congress to act as jury and judge and convict," he added.
Several political pundits have teased out the implications of Pelosi's statement regarding the hearing. Fox News host Tucker Carlson expressed skepticism on Friday about whether Pelosi was speaking to the facts of the case or simply providing an opinion.
"It's a basic check, of course: Was Nancy Pelosi really there?" Carlson said. "Did she witness this 'clown show'? No, she did not. Nancy Pelosi was watching the thing from thousands of miles away. She was going on television and reacting to the clips that she saw on Fox and MSNBC like everyone else also did."
Carlson went on to suggest that Pelosi was simply speaking by the partisan narrative that Democrats have been pushing since the Hunter Biden story was first reported.
"Why did Pelosi do this? Could it be that she just loves clown shows? Probably not," he said. "No, Nancy Pelosi did this because it was helpful to her political party, and that's why she did it."
At the end of the day, it's clear that Democrats and Republicans remain divided over how to handle the case of Hunter Biden's controversial business dealings. However, one thing they can agree on is that the hearing in question was not without its moments of absurdity.