Welcome to the commentary magazine daily podcast today is Thursday, July 20th, 2023.

I'm John Pajor. It's the editor of commentary magazine today. We have a full house yet again with executive editor A. Greenwald. Hi,

Abe. Hi, John. Media commentary column. This Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine. Hi, John. And Washington commentary column. This

Matthew continuity. Hi, Matt. Hi, John. So the big news yesterday out of Washington, though not in the mainstream media, you

won't find it on the front pages of the New York Times or the Washington Post or in most of the aggregate headline aggregators.

Was this house, house oversight committee hearing with the two IRS whistleblowers. One finally being named and showing up in person that was Joe Ziegler, the other Gary Shapley has been

present and sort of a leading figure in the discussion of what was going on with Hunter Biden, his taxes, the IRS's look into whether or not he had been paying his taxes and the so-called sweetheart deal that he has struck with the Justice Department Hunter Biden to plead guilty to two

misdemeanor charges and a gun charge apparently, which will be in a courtroom next week. It's very interesting hearing a lot of bad behavior on the part of members of Congress, which is typical for a high profile hearing,

grandstanding, weird behavior, inability to hold to one line of arguments to make it clear to the people who are watching what on Earth is going on.

Obviously, the big headline was Marjorie Taylor Greene out of nowhere, pulling out giant pictures of Hunter Biden in Flogrante Delicto, which had to be obscured, fuzzed out by Fox News, which I think was the only cable channel showing it live.

She is.

Kitty the C-span viewer, however, John, because there is.

Oh, did you watch on where you watching?

Well, C-span doesn't have quite the ability to instantly blur things that can never be unseen.

I mean, she is just a gem of a representative of a culture in severe decline, bread and circus decline, given what have a field day with Marjorie Taylor Greene,

but that was a side show, and what was interesting was that the, that chap Lee and Ziegler were very forthright, they clearly believe that they had a case, that they had an impregnable case, and that the case had two facets in one facet.

Hunter Biden's failure to pay taxes on monies that he had received.

In 2014 and 2015, which they say is absolutely inarguably the case, except that by the time it was really being investigated, the statute of limitations had run out, and he is no longer apparently good, good tip, by the way, for everybody, if you can make it past seven years in your tax evasion, your Scott free, give it a shot.

Why not evade millions of dollars in taxes, see if they getcha because, you know, it's a, it's a risky bet, but you could come away with millions of dollars, you don't have to pay in taxes.

Nobody really argued the point or tried to, tried to contest it. I guess that's something that won't happen in a hearing. Maybe somebody else will do it. And then this question of what went on from 2017 onward and the clear implication, not implication.

But actual statement was particularly by, by, by Shapley, that there was interference, political interference by people in the Justice Department who were telling them to slow roll things, not to mention things, not to talk to people.

That there was going to be a lot of trouble if they did, that they couldn't ask Hunter Biden's adult children about anything because that would get back to powers that be and, you know, there would be hell to pay.

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