The Biden impeachment hearing was a fishing expedition – no one took the bait

With no evidence and their own witnesses admitting to no firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing, GOP members tried to take a commonsense question too far

There was a commonsense question at the heart of Thursday's congressional hearing on whether to launch a formal impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden that Republicans are counting on Americans to ask themselves. Would any foreign business hire the president's son, Hunter, if it were not for his father?

Out of that, Republicans on the House of Representatives oversight committee spun a vision of Biden Sr sitting atop a sprawling crime family that would be the envy of the mafia. But, as so often in modern American politics, the spectre of Donald Trump was lurking in the shadows.