Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy launches impeachment inquiry amid corruption allegations surrounding US president Joe Biden
Republicans launch a formal inquiry into the President amid allegations of ‘obstruction and corruption’ surrounding his family.
US President Joe Biden faces the politically damaging prospect of impeachment as he campaigns for re-election after Republicans in congress took the rare step of launching a formal inquiry amid allegations of “abuse of power, obstruction and corruption” surrounding the first family.
Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, announced the inquiry on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), the first step in any formal impeachment vote that might follow, accusing the President of a “culture of corruption” based on “serious and credible allegations”, mainly related to his time as vice- president to Barack Obama (2009-2017).
“Bank records show that nearly $US20m in payments were directed to the Biden family members and associates to various shell companies,” he said.
“The Treasury Department alone has more than 150 transactions involving the Biden family business associates that were flagged as suspicious activity by US banks.”
The accusations revolve around to what extent, if at all, Mr Biden, benefited from his son Hunter’s business dealings with foreign companies in China, Ukraine and Romania.
Mr Biden has long denied any knowledge of his family’s business dealings and dismissed as outrageous longstanding Republican suspicions he pushed for the sacking of then Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin in 2016 to avoid scrutiny of his son’s business dealings in that country.
“We have found that President Biden did lie to American people about his own knowledge of his family‘s business dealings,” Mr McCarthy said, referring to testimony from Hunter Biden’s former business associate Devon Archer that emerged earlier this year, which appeared to contradict the president’s position.
The White House, which had been preparing for the announcement for months, slammed the speaker’s move as “extreme politics at its worst”, pointing out Mr McCarthy, who won the speakership earlier this year by a narrow margin, was under pressure from more extreme Republicans to try to impeach the president.
“House Republicans have been investigating the President for nine months, and they‘ve turned up no evidence of wrongdoing,” spokesman Ian Sams said. “He vowed to hold a vote to open impeachment, now he flip flopped because he doesn‘t have support.”
Mr McCarthy, after first suggesting the possibility of an impeachment inquiry in July, had indicated he would initiate such a committee only via a vote in the house, an opportunity he has declined for now in the face of opposition from some congressional Republicans.
“We‘ve got so many things we need to be focusing on,“ Republican senator Shelley Moore Capito said last week. “I don‘t see the glaring evidence that says we need to move forward. I didn’t see it in the Trump case, and voted against it, I don’t see it in this case.”
Some Republicans, including Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, have in recent weeks threatened to try to oust Mr McCarthy or not support budget supply bills unless the speaker launched an impeachment inquiry.
Democrats, some of whom concede Hunter Biden’s business activity while his father was vice president was unethical, maintain Republicans have found no evidence directly linking the president to his son’s business activities.
The US constitution gives congress the power to impeach a president, which can lead to removal from office, on the grounds of “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanours”, a determination ultimately left to congress.
More than 60 per cent of Americans believe the President had at least some involvement in his son’s business dealings, including 42 per cent who said they believed he acted illegally, according to a CNN poll published last week.
A then-Democrat-controlled house impeached Donald Trump twice, in 2019 for a phone call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and again in 2021 for his behaviour surrounding the January 6 Capitol Hill riots. Each time the former president was acquitted in a Senate trail,
An impeachment requires a simple majority vote in the 435-member house and a conviction requires a two-thirds vote in the 100-member Senate.
Republican senate minority leader Mitch McConnell last month told the New York Times impeachments should be “rare”. “This is not good for the country,” he said.
An impeachment inquiry, which would have powers to subpoena documents and call witnesses, would consolidate existing investigations into the Biden family across multiple congressional committees. The new committee impeachment inquiry will be overseen by Oversight, judiciary and ways and means committee chairmen James Comer, Jim Jordan and Jason Smith.
A then-Democrat-controlled house impeached Donald Trump twice, in 2019 for a threatening phone call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and again in 2021 for his behaviour surrounding the January 6 Capitol Hill riots. Each time the former president was acquitted in a Senate trail,
An impeachment requires a simple majority vote in the 435-member house and a conviction requires a two-thirds vote in the 100-member Senate.
Republican senate minority leader Mitch McConnell last month told the New York Times impeachments should be “rare”. “This is not good for the country,” he said.
An impeachment inquiry, which would have powers to subpoena documents and call witnesses, would consolidate existing investigations into the Biden family across multiple congressional committees. The new committee impeachment inquiry will be overseen by oversight, judiciary, and ways and means committee chairmen James Comer, Jim Jordan and Jason Smith.
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