Sen. Charles Grassley's and Rep. James Comer's subpoena to the FBI to release an unclassified document it holds about a whistleblower allegation of a "criminal scheme" involving Joe Biden is nominally about whether the FBI ever bothers to investigate allegations of crime involving Democrats.

And that's a well and worthy aim, given that Comer is the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, and Republicans are casting a spotlight on the illegal politicization seen in that law enforcement agency.

"We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States. What we don't know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further. The FBI's recent history of botching politically charged investigations demands close congressional oversight," Grassley said.

Did they do anything?  Bribery, which is what Comer suggested the matter involved, is an explicitly impeachable offense.  Did the bureau act on an actual bribery allegation by a whistleblower?  Or did they kick back and yawn, focusing on pro-life activists, angry parents at school board meetings, Latin Mass enthusiasts, and President Trump's disputes with the National Archives instead?

That's their job.

But the bribery allegation itself is worth looking at.

After all, many Americans want to know how Joe Biden accumulated a fortune worth tens of millions of dollars or perhaps hundreds of millions while in public office.  The phenomenon of public officials getting rich while in office has been going on for a while, but under Joe Biden, the fortunes are getting bigger, and the impunity is more shameless.  The kind of money seen now is what used to be seen in public officials from places like Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, who often had traditions of running their ex-presidents out of the country after leaving office.

Why aren't these people busted?  We all know the answer to that one: the politicized Department of Justice acts to protect leftist miscreants.  We saw this especially vividly during the Obama administration, when official after official escaped accountability and often moved on to Big Tech jobs without consequences.  Under Joe Biden, it's even worse.

Mark Wauck has some interesting thoughts on this, quoting Jonathan Turley, who thinks that for Biden, the matter will come to nothing:

Jonathan Turley comments on all this, and throws a bit of cold water on my hopeful speculation. He strongly suspects that the Zhou regime [Biden] will attempt some legal hanky panky:

Jonathan Turley

@JonathanTurley

Sen. Grassley just confirmed that a subpoena has been issued that alleges a criminal scheme involving then Vice President Joe Biden based on "very credible" information from a whistleblower. They are seeking a specific document detailing the alleged scheme.

Chairman Comer has confirmed that the whistleblower is alleging a specific "bribery scheme with a foreign national." The document appears to lay out the alleged allegations and Grassley confirmed that he has not seen the document.

Grassley just told Fox that he is concerned that this unclassified document could be "suddenly classified." The Congress is also likely to face claims of privilege over ongoing investigations.

Now the Washington Post is … reporting that Weiss is close to a "charging decision" on Hunter Biden. The Justice Department is likely to use that ongoing investigation as a basis to withhold this document and other information.

The thing about the way we live now is this. While it's apparent that there are highly placed people who want Zhou gone yesterday, no scandal seems to be able to gain the degree of traction necessary to bring about that result. The American people no longer seem to care about corruption in high places, and the MSM certainly doesn't evince any concern about corruption — no matter how grotesque — when its [sic] "their guys". The "What if Trump" standard just doesn't apply.

That is perfectly true.  But the matter will be out there for the public, weighing its voting choices, provided the Bidenites are unsuccessful in suppressing this news.

Perhaps the public really won't care, as Wauck observed, given the kinds of problems the Biden administration has already foisted on the public — inflation, military collapse, CRT, crime — and it will be a matter of whether they can correctly assign the blame.

But a certain percentage will be interested — perhaps that same percentage who said they would have changed their votes had the story about the Hunter Biden laptop allegations not been suppressed by social media, acting on pressure from Democrats.  Apparently some, perhaps not all, but some, voters are influenced by this, meaning the Republicans need to get a message across.

Even more important, if bribery can be shown in some kind of credible way, the other question is, what were the foreign bribers purchasing from Joe, which may well have gone against our American interests, but been a fine thing for Joe's pocketbook?   What did they buy?  That needs to get out, because there already is heavy circumstantial evidence that bribery may well be the career hallmark of Joe Biden, who has no achievements of his own as a lawmaker over the course of 50 years in office, but has shifted his position on many things — war, defense, abortion, fiscal discipline, green nonsense — over the long, winding course of his career.  What did the foreign actors get for their money?  Does that explain why Biden has changed his political colors like a chameleon?

It does matter, because Biden is the most corrupt and least punished president in history, with a full family of accomplices.

If Biden can't be touched, he will have to be worn down at the edges, in the marginal players, and the hangers on even as the Biden machine seeks to legally protect them.

It does matter even if it won't be punished.  This is what impeachment is for.

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of images by Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; Acaben via Wikimedia Commons,  CC BY-SA 2.0, PxFuel public domain; and SKopp via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.