In a recent interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo, former President Donald Trump recounted a long-ago conversation he’d had with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. He claimed he asked Kennedy whom he considered to be the smartest senator. “I won’t tell you the answer because I don’t particularly like the guy. I said, ‘Who’s the dumbest?’ He said, ‘Probably Joe [Biden].’”

According to Trump, Kennedy said, “He’s hale and hearty and well meant, [great] personality, but you go to policy or you go to taxes or anything that’s complicated, he doesn’t have a clue.”

BIDEN MAKES THE WRONG CHOICE FOR NEW CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS

It’s not hard to imagine this conversation taking place. Even in his prime, President Joe Biden often came across as a buffoon. When we think of Biden’s long career in Washington (before his presidency), we think of his humiliating forced withdrawal from the 1988 Democratic presidential primary for plagiarism, his vile treatment of Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, his unwanted touching, and his lies and exaggerations.

But his reemergence on the national stage in 2019 brought new attacks. Accusations that he had enriched himself and his family members during his tenure as vice president were leveled against him — serious charges he managed to dodge ahead of the 2020 presidential election with a little help from his friends.

But those allegations have not gone away. In fact, they’ve only grown louder and more damning since his first day in office. And today, four years later, they’ve become too big to hide.

Since taking back Congress in January, House Republican investigators have uncovered incontrovertible evidence that the Biden family enriched itself by trading on the ability of its patriarch to influence U.S. policy decisions for cash. The evidence includes bank records, the content on Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the sworn testimony of a growing number of IRS and FBI whistleblowers who participated in and even led their agencies’ investigations into Hunter Biden.

The records show that shell corporations were set up by Hunter Biden and his associates for the sole purpose of laundering money through a tangled web of accounts to confuse anyone trying to follow the money trail. According to testimony from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, documents indicate the family took in at least $17 million from foreign entities between 2014 and 2019.

Summing up the case following Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the committee chairman, told Fox News he expects the Biden family’s total haul to be between $25-30 million. He added, “All roads lead to Joe Biden.”

And they’re not done yet. GOP investigators still have a trove of bank records to comb through, and they are currently fighting with leaders inside the IRS, the FBI, and the Department of Justice to obtain documents that are critical to their investigation.

The committee also expects to hear from longtime Hunter Biden friend and business partner Devon Archer on Monday. In addition to his extensive ties to the Biden family, Archer sat on the board of directors of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings with Hunter. Just the News reported that Archer “golfed with Joe Biden, rubbed elbows with John Kerry, and stood at the intersection of Washington power brokers and foreign oligarchs seeking to curry favor with the future first family.”

Archer was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud in June 2018 for “ swindling the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of more than $60 million” and is scheduled to begin a one-year sentence next month. (Hunter Biden was not involved in this deal.)

Since his conviction, Archer has been thrown under the bus by the Biden family, and House Republicans hope he’ll be out for revenge when he testifies next week. If he chooses to “talk,” he could provide a wealth of additional information to GOP investigators.

Moreover, bank records don’t lie, and it’s highly unlikely that such a large number of federal whistleblowers (whose testimonies all appear to support the Republican’s claims) are lying. It’s become almost impossible for either Hunter Biden or Joe Biden to distance themselves from the House GOP’s claims that the family sold influence for cash.

Although this is the most serious problem the president is currently facing, there are many other obstacles that, in a sane world, would prevent his reelection bid. Besides the mess he’s made of our economy, our southern border, and so much more, it can no longer be denied that he is unfit, mentally and physically, to perform his duties.

Veteran journalist Conrad Black asked the question on many conservatives’ minds in a Thursday op-ed: How can the “weary and befuddled” people “notionally look themselves in the mirror next year and reelect a senescent, sticky-fingered, ill-tempered, spavined, pocket-borough political wheelhorse who in his prime had trouble with the truth, elemental elocution, and complex issues, to four more years as president?”

Good question.

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Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner, Power Line, the Western Journal, and AFNN and is a past contributor to RedState, Newsmax, and Bongino.com . Her articles have appeared on many sites, including RealClearPolitics, MSN, and the Federalist. Follow Elizabeth on  Twitter  or  LinkedIn .