How a House Republican 'flubbed the basics on burdens of proof': columnist

15 December 2023

On Wednesday, December 13, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously voted to move forward with an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. House Democrats, meanwhile, voted unanimously against an inquiry, many of them slamming it as devoid of merit and emphasizing that Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) and his colleagues haven't offered any proof that Biden did anything wrong.

One of the Republicans who argued in favor of the inquiry was Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina. In an opinion column published on December 14, MSNBC's Steve Benen stresses that Norman's comments were quite revealing about House Republicans — and not in a good way.

Norman, on the House floor, said of Biden, "You cannot just…. say you are innocent and not have to prove it" — a comment that, Benen laments, shows a failure to understand "how the presumption of innocence works in the United States."

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"As the video clip of the GOP congressman's comments showed," Benen writes, "Norman was looking across the aisle, as if he were trying to convince Democratic members of how right he was. The trouble, of course, is that the South Carolinian flubbed the basics on burdens of proof. To hear Norman tell it, Biden says he's innocent, but that's not good enough — because, according to the far-right congressman, the Democrat has to 'prove' he's innocent."

In the U.S., Benen reminds Norman, the burden of proof is on the "accuser" — which is a "bedrock principle of our entire system."

"That said," Benen argues, "the fact that Norman got this wrong helps shed some light on his party's evidence-free impeachment crusade: It appears some Republicans expect Biden to somehow come up with even more evidence of his innocence, rather than expecting the GOP to produce evidence of wrongdoing."

Read Steve Benen's full MSNBC column at this link.

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