Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees: Interview with Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY)
Interview
Well, look, it is a crime that in my 10 years as a federal prosecutor, I have never heard of being charged.
The facts of it seem to be that he had a gun for 11 days, and he lied in making that application for a gun and that is the letter of the law.
I am somewhat concerned as they are that what changed the prosecutor's mind may have been some of the political influence.
But at the end of the day, Anderson, if Hunter Biden committed crimes, he should be held accountable for them. But those crimes and that investigation should remain in the Department of Justice in the court of law.
Hunter Biden is not the president. And whether or not he committed crimes is not grounds for an impeachment inquiry that we're now going into, and that is all that the House Republicans have.
They have no evidence linking Joe Biden in any way to Hunter Biden's business dealings.
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They are -- they are -- I've never heard of this charge being brought. I understand it is occasionally brought here and there. But in the discretion, you know, I was in the Southern District of New York, we looked for felons who were in possession of guns. We did not look for people who were subjected to substance abuse for 11 days in the possession of a gun.
So this is unusual, and when you hear of the two-tiered justice system, I would argue that Hunter Biden is getting worse of the worst of it, because his last name is Biden, not the other way around.
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No, I think that, you know, we, as a Democrat, I as a Democrat think that the Department of Justice needs to deal with criminal investigations on their own without any political influence and if Hunter Biden committed crimes, he should be held accountable.
You don't hear Republicans saying that if Donald Trump committed crimes, he should be held accountable, because we care about the rule of law. We care about our criminal justice process. We care about our democracy and the Republicans are purely political at this point.
This impeachment inquiry is purely political theater designed to help Donald Trump's re-election in 2024.
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Well, once the horse is out of the barn, it's hard because if they do not impeach him, that, of course, is an admission that their investigation was a total flop.
It is a flop, and there is no basis to move from a standard investigation into an impeachment inquiry, other than to kowtow to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump who want this impeachment.
And so now we're going down this road based on no evidence that changed over the last several weeks, and they don't have any more authority than they did before.
So nothing is different, other than calling it an impeachment inquiry, but now, it has turned into a very hyper partisan and unfortunate political game that they are playing when we're facing a shutdown in three weeks.
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I don't know. I cannot figure out what is going on with this Republican Party. You have the fringe extreme right of 20 or so people who do not acknowledge that we're operating, they are operating in divided government with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president.
And they think just because they want something that they should hold the entire government hostage to get everything they want, and they're willing to go forward with a shutdown. That's not the way anybody governs.
You can't sit there and say it's my way or the highway, especially when you're 20 out of 535, plus the president.
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Thank you.
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