A Party of Short Sellers: Why Democrats Need to Re-Think Hunter’s Contempt | Opinion – The Messenger

Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) declared this week that there “is no precedent for the U.S. House of Representatives holding a private citizen in contempt of Congress who has offered to testify in public, under oath, and on a day of the committee s choosing. Raskin said that Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) repeatedly urged Hunter Biden to appear at a committee hearing, and Hunter Biden agreed without mentioning, of course, that Hunter set his own conditions on any appearance.

So House Democrats all of them are expected to oppose holding a witness in contempt for openly defying a subpoena and instead holding a defiant press conference outside the Capitol. In doing so, Raskin and his colleagues will establish that in the future, when Democrats are in control, witnesses will be able to unilaterally refuse to appear for depositions with committee staff and to dictate the conditions under which they will appear for testimony.

No impartial judge would support such an absurd claim but it will become the position of the Democratic Party going forward.

For real short sellers, the idea is to leverage money to buy stock or shares while betting that the stock or shares will decline in value. By selling them and then buying the cheaper securities, the short seller can return the cheaper shares to the lender while pocketing the difference. Of course, the problem is when the value of the things you are selling goes up.

That is precisely what has happened to past Democratic short sells, from Senate filibusters to House impeachments. The institutional rules they sold out proved to be very valuable within a couple years, when Republicans took control leaving them with little beyond hypocrisy in crying foul.

What is most impressive, however, is the lack of criticism by party members or the media. These were costly mistakes, but the “lenders” seem entirely comfortable with the losses; they are enabling these bad trades for a party of short sellers.

With the Biden contempt vote, Democrats once again will be asked to think beyond the political moment or the next election. At some point, the costs of shielding the Bidens from an alleged corruption scandal will become prohibitively high. And, eventually, the Democratic Party will find itself one short-sell short of political and ethical bankruptcy.

via themessenger.com

Jonathan Turley.