House GOP opens formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden

WASHINGTON (CN) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday announced that Congress would open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

The drastic move comes as Republicans, who command a slim majority in the House, seek to frame the president as improperly involved in the business dealings of his son, Hunter.

“House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct,” Speaker McCarthy said during a press conference Tuesday. “Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption.”

McCarthy said that Biden lied about his knowledge of his son’s business dealings, pointing to testimony given to House Republicans from witnesses who said that Biden “joined on multiple phone calls and had multiple interactions” with Hunter Biden’s business partners.

The speaker also pointed to other purported evidence gathered by GOP lawmakers investigating the president and his son, including allegations that Biden, while serving as vice president, used the power of his office to secure Hunter a spot on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Further, McCarthy blasted what he called “special treatment” from federal investigators, who earlier this year filed a pair of tax evasion charges and a federal gun charge against Hunter Biden. The Justice Department had worked out a plea deal with the younger Biden in which he would have sidestepped prison time, but that agreement imploded in August.

“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption,” McCarthy said, “and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives.”

Congressional Democrats have long argued that Republicans have yet to provide any hard evidence that President Biden was involved in his son’s business schemes.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin told Courthouse News Tuesday that he was surprised it had taken McCarthy this long to bring forward an impeachment inquiry.

“They were determined to impeach President Biden, with or without evidence, and they’ve decided to go forward without evidence,” said Durbin, an Illinois Democrat. “I don’t take it seriously.”

The White House, writing Tuesday in a memo to members of the media, said the allegations against President Biden were "not only unfounded but, in virtually all cases, have been actively disproven."

"After nearly 9 months of investigating, House Republicans haven't been able to turn up any evidence of the President doing anything wrong," the memo read.

The White House also sought to guide reporters' hands as they cover the upcoming inquiry. "When even House Republican members are admitting that there is simply no evidence Joe Biden did anything wrong, much less impeachable, that should set off alarm bells for news organizations."

Speaker McCarthy's announcement comes as he faces a crisis of confidence from his right flank. Some of the Republican party’s more radical lawmakers, including members from the right-wing Freedom Caucus, have heaped pressure on McCarthy to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

Georgia Representative and one-time Freedom Caucus member Marjorie Taylor Greene lauded McCarthy’s decision in a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.

“This is what leadership looks like and it’s the right thing to do,” the lawmaker wrote. “The American people deserve to know the truth and it’s our duty to uproot corruption wherever this investigation may lead.”

Durbin, meanwhile, speculated that McCarthy’s announcement was calculated to appease the Freedom Caucus and other radical Republicans.

“He’s in the midst of delicate negotiations and is trying to find a way to win back the most extreme members of his caucus,” the lawmaker said. “He’s taken a rather extreme step of doing things.”

An impeachment inquiry is not the same as an impeachment vote. Under Tuesday's announcement, the House will formally investigate whether President Biden committed an impeachable offense, laid out in the Constitution as "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

In the event Congress decides to move forward with impeachment, they would have to pass what would certainly be a highly contentious vote in the House. The process would then move to the Democrat-controlled Senate, which would be unlikely to convict the president and remove him from office.

Republicans’ impeachment inquiry against President Biden will be the third such action taken against a sitting president in the last several years. Democrats successfully voted to impeach former President Donald Trump on two separate occasions — although the Senate failed to convict both times.

Follow @BenjaminSWeiss

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