Rep. Jason Smith and NBC reporter clash over timeline of his Biden allegations

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) appeared unable to answer questions Wednesday when he was pressed repeatedly about how his new “evidence” in his probe of President Biden proved any actual wrongdoing.

In a tense exchange during a press conference purporting to reveal “new evidence” of Biden’s alleged use of political influence to help his son, Hunter, NBC correspondent Ryan Nobles asked Smith how the evidence, dated in August 2017, could prove Biden used any political influence when he was not a public official at the time.

“I’m not an expert on the timeline,” Smith first replied when asked to explain the timing and how it proved wrongdoing. “I would love to have President Biden and his family to tell us about all the timelines, because it’s really, really unfortunate that we see so many meetings and so many phone calls that involved around official activity that the vice president has been participating in, and then big sums of money follows later.”

Nobles pressed again on the timeline, asking, “But if he’s not the president or the vice president at that time, where’s the wrongdoing? He wasn’t even a candidate for president at that time.”

Smith began replying, saying, “He was a candidate,” before cutting himself off and asking what news outlet Nobles was with. 

“Apparently, you’ll never believe us,” Smith said, when Nobles told him he was with NBC.

“I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m asking you for I’m asking you a very direct question. You presented a piece of evidence that you say came on Aug. 6, 2017, that demonstrates that Joe Biden was using political influence to help his son,” Nobles said, adding, “I’m completely open-minded about this. I’m asking you, specifically, how does that demonstrate that there is some sort of political influence being put over him, if at that time, he is not a political, he’s not an elected official?”

Smith brushed off the question, saying, ‘I’m definitely not going to pinpoint one item,” before Nobles retorted that Smith presented the one piece of evidence in question. 

“So apparently you don’t agree with it, so report that you disagree with it,” Smith said. 

“It’s not that I don’t agree with it. I’m asking you to explain it,” Nobles replied.

“I’ll take the next question,” Smith said.

The exchange came as House GOP members are preparing for the first hearing Thursday into the Biden impeachment inquiry. Smith, as head of the Ways and Means Committee, is in charge of one of the three committees spearheading the investigations.