Joe Biden could face impeachment inquiry over family business dealings
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he is directing committees to open a formal investigation into a ‘culture of corruption’.
Tuesday 12 September 2023 23:27, UK
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Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy speaks at the Capitol in Washington
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he is directing committees to open a formal investigation into a ‘culture of corruption’.
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US President Joe Biden could be facing a possible impeachment inquiry over his family’s business dealings.
US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said he is directing committees to open a formal investigation into what he called a “culture of corruption” around the first family.
He said over the past few months “House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct”.
Democrats described the move as “absurd”, while the White House called it “extreme politics at its worst.”
“House Republicans have been investigating the President for nine months, and they’ve turned up no evidence of wrongdoing,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement.
“His own Republican members have said so.”
Joe Biden
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‘Where the evidence takes us’
Republicans, who now narrowly control the House, have accused Mr Biden of profiting while he served as vice president from 2009 to 2017 from his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business ventures.
They have not yet presented substantiation.
Mr McCarthy is planning to convene lawmakers behind closed doors multiple times this week, including for a meeting to discuss a potential impeachment.
“I am directing our House committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden,” Mr McCarthy told reporters.
“We will go where the evidence takes us.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy
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Speaker Kevin McCarthy
The committees will begin gathering evidence of possible financial misconduct, he said.
However, the House was not yet expected to vote on an impeachment inquiry, a spokesperson for Mr McCarthy said.
‘Witch hunt’
Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer has branded the suggestion of an inquiry as “absurd”.
“The American people want us to do something that will make their lives better, not go off on these chases and witch hunts,” he said.
Other Democrats called the move a partisan effort to shift attention from the legal woes of Donald Trump and from the Republicans’ own struggles.
Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal said: “This impeachment is Kevin McCarthy’s shiny new object to distract the public from the fact that the GOP can’t even pass bills to fund the government.”
RED MEAT FOR THE RIGHT WING OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
James Matthews – Scotland correspondent
James Matthews
US correspondent
@jamesmatthewsky
It is red meat for the right wing.
Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy is under pressure to placate party members, right-leaning and disgruntled, who had put him on notice that his job was on the line.
He’ll hope that stepping up the pursuit of Joe Biden quietens the drumbeat.
McCarthy is charging the House Oversight Committee with the formal impeachment inquiry – it’s the first step in the impeachment process, gathering evidence for charges that could be taken to a vote on the House floor.
Whatever its progress there, it would certainly flounder in any onward journey through the Senate – it would need a two-thirds majority in a chamber where the Democrats have a majority.
Factor in that the same committee has been looking into allegations of dodgy Biden business dealings without finding concrete evidence and actual impeachment seems a distant prospect.
It doesn’t insulate the president from the politics of impeachment, however.
The case
A former business associate of Hunter Biden told a House hearing that the president’s son sold the “illusion” of access to power while his father was vice president, according to a transcript released last month.
The White House has said there is no basis for an investigation and Mr Biden has mocked Republicans over a possible impeachment.
Many Republicans were infuriated when the House, then controlled by Democrats, twice impeached President Donald Trump, in 2019 and 2021, though he was acquitted both times in the Senate.
US President Joe Biden 0:37
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Biden hits back at reporter
Some on the party’s right have said they would try to remove Mr McCarthy as the leader of the House if he did not move ahead with an impeachment effort against the president.
However, any impeachment effort against Mr Biden would be unlikely to succeed as even if the Republican-controlled House votes to impeach the president, an uncertain prospect in itself given the party’s narrow vote margin, it would almost certainly fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
