'Comedy of errors': Jamie Raskin sticks a fork in GOP impeachment probe

With Hunter Biden due to testify on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) delivered some pre-testimony spin to reporters where he torched the Republican-led impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden as a complete failure.

As reported by the Washington Examiner's Cami Mondeaux, Raskin held court and stuck a metaphorical fork in the impeachment inquiry.

“Nobody can state on their side what they think Joe Biden did, even as a private citizen, that would constitute some kind of criminal offense," Raskin said.

Per Punchbowl News' Max Cohen, Raskin also deemed the inquiry "a comedy of errors from the start."

READ MORE: Trump supporters' brains prevent them from changing their minds: neuroscientist

"This investigation is over at this point," Raskin added, per USA Today's Ken Tran. "There's really nothing left to pursue."

The impeachment inquiry was dealt a massive blow earlier this month when one of its star witnesses, longtime FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, was charged with lying to investigators about alleged multimillion-dollar bribes that President Joe Biden supposedly received from Ukrainian energy firm Burisma.

While the Republican inquiry has turned up some unseemly details about Hunter Biden's professional and personal lives, it has yet to find a direct link between his business dealings and his father.

The House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has been criticized for its lack of evidence for the GOP's allegations that the president laundered bribes through his son Hunter's international business deals.

In fact, even some of the GOP's own witnesses have contradicted the idea Biden was involved in his son's work.

But they might not be relying on finding evidence, Time Magazine reported in January. Rather, their plan might be to drown the president in frivolous subpoenas for information until they have an excuse to claim he committed obstruction of justice.

"Some experts suspect the GOP will try to trap Biden by making outlandish requests for information that he doesn’t provide, and then argue that he impeded the inquiry," reported Eric Cortellessa, noting that because the House has now formally set up an impeachment investigation, "anything Biden does that can be viewed as obstruction could constitute an impeachable offense."

He added, "Republicans could 'send any kind of subpoena and then on a partisan vote say the President didn’t give us what we asked for,' says Michael Conway, an attorney who served as counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s 1974 impeachment inquiry into former President Richard Nixon. One of the three articles of impeachment considered against Nixon was for defying an impeachment inquiry."