Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, announced on Tuesday, September 12th, that the House will launch an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, making it the fifth time in American history that a sitting president faces such a procedure. McCarthy said the inquiry would focus on “allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption” by Biden.
Republicans started looking into Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s affairs after gaining a majority in the House of Representatives in the November 2022 midterm elections. They have launched investigations to reveal whether Joe Biden used his clout as vice president between 2009 and 2017 to further his son’s business dealings and whether he received bribes from foreign countries while doing so.
Bank records obtained by the Oversight and Accountability Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives revealed that the Bidens and their business associates received millions of dollars from oligarchs in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine during Joe Biden’s vice presidency. Republicans are particularly looking into payments Hunter Biden received from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. An FBI informant claimed that Burisma executive Mykola Zlochevsky paid $5 million to both President Biden and his son in exchange for shaking off a corruption investigation into the dealings of Burisma and for getting the then-prosecutor of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, fired.
Kevin McCarthy said Republicans also want to investigate whether Hunter, who is currently under federal investigation for possible tax crimes, received special treatment by the White House when he negotiated a plea deal with the Justice Department to avoid serious charges. McCarthy said an impeachment inquiry is necessary to ensure Congress can use the full weight of its oversight authority to pursue its investigation of the Biden family. “America needs the answers,” he told reporters.
The U.S. Constitution permits Congress to remove presidents before their term is up if enough lawmakers vote to say that they committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours.” An inquiry is the first step of the impeachment process, where evidence is gathered for the articles, or charges, of impeachment. While a Republican-majority House could be expected to impeach Joe Biden, the Senate, which is led by Democrats, would surely not vote to convict the president. Only three presidents have ever been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump twice during his tenure. All of them were acquitted and completed their terms in office.
White House spokesperson Ian Sams blasted the announcement by Kevin McCarthy, tweeting: “House Republicans have been investigating the President for 9 months, and they’ve turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.”
Democrats believe the inquiry is politically motivated and intends to harm Joe Biden, who is running for reelection in next year’s presidential election. His most likely Republican contender will be former president Donald Trump. He too is facing legal troubles: Democratic prosecutors recently launched four separate criminal charges against him—also called politically motivated by Republicans.
“Under Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice has become a key cog in the White House’s political machine. It is prosecuting the GOP’s leading presidential candidate, a move that began after Biden told aides that’s what he wanted,” commented the New York Post. An insider article by The New York Times last April claimed Biden “confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted.”
“They indicted me because I’m in first place,” Trump said last week at a South Dakota Republican convention. His court trials will start at the beginning of next year, right in the middle of the Republican primary elections, but none of these cases have hurt his popularity so far. According to the latest opinion polls, Trump is favoured by 59% of Republican voters, with second-placed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis polling at a distant 12%.
The probe into Biden could also last for many months, but he has nothing to fear either and is expected to easily win the Democratic Party primaries. He is leading the pack with 65% of Democratic voters backing him, while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in second place with 10%. The final race for the White House will be a close contest; according to nationwide polls, with Biden holding only a 0.2% advantage over Trump.
