The left-wing establishment press tried hard to ignore the pay-to-play scandal involving the First Family, but they have come to realize that it’s just not possible to continue the charade. As a result, more reports are popping up in the so-called mainstream media describing – often in brief and vague terms – the latest developments. Of course, the main fear among Democrats and their apologists in the world of journalism is that links between Hunter Biden’s shady business activities and his father will eventually emerge. To that end, left-leaning reporters and editors have grown particularly fond of using the term “without evidence” when referring to House Republicans’ investigation of the Biden scandal. But are they gaslighting Americans with semantics?
It is not difficult to find examples of media reports that contain the words “without evidence” or “unverified” when referring to allegations leveled against the Bidens by GOP members of the House Oversight Committee. These same journalists were far more cavalier with the concept of evidence when it came to former President Donald Trump. The bar was and still is a lot lower for the 45th president than for the 46th.
On August 17, Washington’s most famous newspaper with strong ties to the political left published an article about how Hunter Biden’s overly optimistic plea deal with the Department of Justice (DOJ) recently fell apart. At one point, the authors of this piece wrote of the Hunter Biden investigation: “The probe was opened in 2018, during the administration of Trump, who has speculated without evidence that Hunter Biden took bribes from foreign companies and involved his father in corrupt business dealings.”
In the very next paragraph: “Republicans conducting their own investigations on Capitol Hill have not presented evidence linking President Biden to any wrongdoing.”
The Biden Scandal, Evidence, and Proof
Neither of these statements has any basis in fact. Why? Because there is, indeed, more than a little evidence that the younger Biden took bribes and that Joe Biden is linked to his son’s questionable financial dealings. There is an important difference between evidence and proof. When it comes to allegations against Donald Trump, that difference is ignored. What really is evidence – sometimes only the thinnest of circumstantial evidence – is presented by the Fourth Estate as proof of wrongdoing. With the Biden scandal, it’s almost the reverse; lack of proof is portrayed as a lack of evidence.
So, what is the difference between proof and evidence? Attorneys, judges, and legal scholars could probably debate this for months and still not come to a consensus. However, a pretty good starting point is one of the definitions of evidence provided by the American Heritage Dictionary: “A thing or set of things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment.” Compare that to the Cambridge Dictionary’s definition of proof: “A fact or piece of information that shows that something exists or is true.”
Evidence can become proof if most or all of it leads indisputably to the same conclusion – but that is usually up to a jury to decide. There are rules, of course, that determine what is and is not admissible as evidence in a court of law. At the federal level, that is determined by the Federal Rules of Evidence. The point, however, is that one must take care in distinguishing between proof and evidence. It may not be so easy to prove something took place, but it could be the easiest thing in the world to find evidence that it did.
A Mountain of Evidence
The House Oversight Committee has photos, emails, telephone transcripts, White House visitor logs, and witness testimony that Joe Biden on several occasions met or spoke with Hunter Biden’s business associates and some of his potential overseas business partners. This is evidence. They have also seen a memo possessed by the FBI that details an allegation from a credible human source. That source claims a senior executive of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, said Burisma’s owner sought Joe Biden’s help in derailing an investigation into the company. That executive further claims that Hunter and Joe Biden were each paid $5 million to kill the investigation. Hunter’s closest business partner, Devon Archer, testified that Hunter, Burisma’s owner, and another senior executive put in a conference call to then-Vice President Joe Biden, who traveled to Ukraine just days later and demanded the Ukrainians fire their top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma. That is evidence. House Republicans have bank records detailing millions in payments from various foreign companies into accounts linked to Hunter Biden. This, too, is evidence.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Do Republicans have proof, then, that Joe Biden financially benefitted from his son’s business deals? Not yet, perhaps – but to claim that they have no evidence is wildly inaccurate. And then there’s Hunter Biden in his own words from a 2019 text message to his daughter. In the message, Hunter wrote in part: “I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family Fro [sic] 30 years. It’s really hard. But don’t worry unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary.” Is that not evidence, at least, that Joe Biden and other family members financially benefitted from Hunter’s business activities?
The media can claim – for now, at least – that there is no proof Joe Biden took a cut of the millions Hunter and his partners raked in from selling access to the office of the vice president. Their protestations that there is no evidence, however, are nothing short of laughable. So far, all that evidence points to the chief executive’s involvement, at least. Democrats needed a lot less evidence to impeach Trump twice. What would they say now about the four indictments Trump faces? They would probably insist that, at some point, a preponderance of evidence meets the burden of proof. When it comes to the Biden scandal, how much evidence will it take to hit that same threshold?
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