Listening to House Oversight and Reform Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin’s (D-MD) opening statement in last week’s first impeachment inquiry hearing against President Joe Biden , one would be forgiven for thinking they’d tuned into a hearing about former President Donald Trump instead. Referring to House Republican leaders as “flying monkeys,” Raskin tried to persuade listeners that the real reason for the impeachment inquiry was to “delay justice” against Trump.

Raskin claimed , “Trump's convinced that if we shut the government down, his four criminal prosecutions on 91 different charges will be defunded and delayed long enough to keep him from having to go before a jury of his peers before the 2024 election. And like flying monkeys on a mission for the Wicked Witch of the West, Trump's followers in the House now carry messages out to the world: ‘Shut down the government. Shut down the prosecutions.’”

Raskin probably should have stayed away from the Wizard of Oz analogy given that he and his fellow party hacks more closely resembled the film’s fumbling, bumbling wizard whose ruse ended in spectacular fashion when Toto pulled back the curtain. But that’s a story for another day.

Raskin’s rant was just one of several opening stunts meant to delay the proceeding. Another was Democrats’ absurd motion to call former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and onetime associate Lev Parnas as witnesses and their insistence on a roll-call vote.

It was clear House Democrats were determined to follow the marching orders issued to the press by Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel's Office, the day after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced the impeachment inquiry. In a 16-page memo , Sams directed the media to scrutinize the House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry, which he claimed was “based on lies.” The party line, according to Sams, would be that “the House GOP investigations have turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by POTUS. In fact, their own witnesses have testified to that, and their own documents have showed no link to POTUS.”

Having adopted this narrative, the Democrats went to work.

While it’s true that investigators still haven’t found the fire, meaning a direct deposit into one of Biden’s bank accounts from a foreign national, the amount of thick, black smoke billowing out from the trove of evidence turned up by House investigators so far suggests they’re closing in on the truth.

Characterizing Biden’s actions as those of a father who loves his son, Democrats stuck with the party narrative: “Unless we see a deposit slip, the evidence is irrelevant.”

But, according to George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who testified at last week’s hearing, it’s not necessary to show funds flowing into Biden’s coffers from his son’s foreign business associates. Bribery law does not require funds to go to the object [Biden] of the scheme. That’s not the way pay-to-play schemes work.

Republicans have produced bank records showing that nine Biden family members, including a grandchild, received money from foreign nationals for no discernible business purpose. And they know these funds were transferred through an elaborate network of up to 20 shell corporations set up by Hunter Biden and his associates to create confusion.

Turley explained that if they paid Joe Biden directly, it “could be seen as a bribe.” He noted, “The whole purpose of influence peddling is to use family members as shields for corrupt officials. … The payments were going to his family, but he was the object of the influence peddling.”

Considering that Hunter Biden and Devon Archer are both Yale-trained lawyers, they are well aware of the intricacies of U.S. bribery law.

Naturally, in his closing statement, Raskin, remembering his duty to his party, said, “I’m afraid the majority forgot to bring the evidence with them today.”

The Democrats’ obstruction continued on Saturday. Hoping to delay a vote on the stopgap funding bill that would prevent a government shutdown, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) pulled a fire alarm in the House Cannon office building, prompting an immediate evacuation.

Bowman, who is now under investigation for his stunt, put out a bizarre statement on Saturday evening: “I am embarrassed to admit that I activated the fire alarm, mistakenly thinking it would open the door. I regret this and sincerely apologize for any confusion this caused. But I want to be very clear: this was not me, in any way, trying to delay any vote. It was the exact opposite — I was trying urgently to get to a vote.” Right.

As surreal as these events were, they were simply a microcosm of what has become business as usual in Washington, D.C.

Obstruction has become second nature to Democrats. So rabid is their need for power that they’ve lost their capacity for rational thought. What the impeachment inquiry hearing really showed is that there is no line the Democrats won’t cross and no lie they won’t tell in their quest to gain and maintain power.

In remarks before the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in Wilmington, Delaware, last week, Tucker Carlson summed up the situation. He asked : “What wouldn’t they do? What haven’t they done?”

Those aren’t rhetorical questions. He is, of course, right. Democrats have become the party of obstruction.

Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner, Power Line, and AFNN and a fellow at the Heritage Foundation Academy. She is a past contributor to RedState, Newsmax, the Western Journal, and  Bongino.com . Her articles have appeared on RealClearPolitics, MSN, the Federalist, and many other sites. Please follow Elizabeth on  X  or  LinkedIn .