Joe Biden Identified as 'Political Figure 1' in Draft Warrant

Exhibit 203, a draft warrant recently released by the House Ways and Means Committee, identifies Political Figure 1 as former Vice President Joe Biden.

Who is "Political Figure 1" in whistleblower records from the GOP’s investigation into Hunter Biden business dealings?

CBS News' Catherine Herridge dug into the trove of new documents recently released by the House Ways and Means Committee. Two of these documents (exhibits 202 and 203) refer to a person identified as Political Figure 1.

Exhibit 202 is an email sent by prosecutor Lesley Wolf to senior FBI and IRS investigators. Wolf instructs investigators to keep a narrow scope in the investigation and to remove references to Political Figure 1.

Exhibit 203, a draft warrant, identifies Political Figure 1 as former Vice President Joe Biden.

“He is the father of Subject 1,” the document reads.

"The IRS whistleblowers have alleged that they were blocked from following evidence that may have led to President Biden,” says Herridge.

None of this, of course, means Joe Biden or Hunter Biden are guilty of anything. But it does help explain the zeal with which Democrats have prosecuted former President Donald Trump.

Partisanship in Washington, DC (and beyond) has reached a new phase. Leaders of our political parties are now investigating and prosecuting political opponents and their families.

Partisans will argue their own candidate is innocent—it’s a witch hunt!—and the other guys are guilty. Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong.

I’m of the mind that most of our political leaders are snakes, and DC is the most corrupt place on earth. I don’t have an ounce of love or respect for either the former or current president.

But I am concerned by this new phase of American politics: investigating and prosecuting political enemies. It calls to mind a recent FEE article written by Larry Reed on Publius Rutilius Rufus (158 B.C.-78 B.C.), a great-uncle of Julius Caesar who had an illustrious career in the military before he turned his attention to politics.

Rufus was known as an “incorruptible” man, which made him a target of those who weren’t, and Reed describes what happened to Rufus when he attempted to reform Rome’s corrupt tax system.

It had become a common practice in the late Republic for the government to hire private contractors to collect taxes. These “publicani” often extorted more from their victims than the taxes required because that’s the way the contracts were written. The government didn’t care what the publicani kept for themselves if it got its expected revenues. When Rufus attempted to stop the injustices this arrangement created, the publicani and their allies in the Roman Senate fought back. They arranged a sham trial with a pre-ordained verdict and charged Rufus with the very thing of which they themselves were guilty: extortion and corruption.

Historian Tom Holland in Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic writes that Rufus’s conviction was “the most notorious scandal in Roman legal history” and “an object lesson in how dangerous it could be to uphold ancient values against the predatory greed of corrupt officials.” With utterly no evidence and all credible testimony to the contrary, the accusers claimed Rufus had extorted money from Smyrna in the Roman province of Asia (what is now western Turkey).

Another historian, Mike Duncan, notes, “The charges were ludicrous as Rutilius [Rufus] was a model of probity and would later be cited by Cicero as the perfect model of a Roman administrator.”

Now, I’m not sure America has many “incorruptible” men or women left. But I fear we’ve reached a point, or soon will, where those who attempt to address the corruption in the American system are handled like the Romans treated Rufus.

Reed describes how Rome’s last honest man spent his final years.

“As punishment for his trumped-up offense, Rufus was sent into exile but in deference to his past service, the court gave him the option of choosing where that would be. He chose Smyrna, the place he was charged with victimizing. When he arrived there, he was celebrated as the man who had tried to end the very practices of which he was wrongly convicted.”

I don’t think either Joe Biden or Donald Trump are the answer to America’s problems, which are more serious than I suspect many realize.

But I do think acknowledging that is the first step toward healing.