WASHINGTON, Sept 28, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - US Republicans launch impeachment
inquiry hearings into Joe Biden on Thursday, escalating an eight-month
corruption investigation that has failed to uncover evidence of wrongdoing by
the president.
The party says the information it has amassed warrants streamlining its
multiple probes into an official inquiry empowered to unleash investigators
from three House committees to subpoena Biden's bank records.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has accused Biden of lying about his knowledge
of his son Hunter Biden's business dealings, which Republicans claim
corruptly benefited the Democratic leader when he was vice president.
"House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into
President Biden's conduct," McCarthy said as he announced the inquiry, under
pressure from his party's far-right fringe to target the president.
"Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of
corruption."
The Biden administration has dismissed the effort as a "stunt," accusing
Republicans of trying to distract voters, days ahead of a looming government
shutdown sparked by far-right lawmakers.
- 'Chaotic' -
The Constitution provides that Congress may remove a president for "treason,
bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
Impeachment by the House -- the political equivalent of a criminal indictment
-- would spark a "trial" by the Senate, with the president losing his job if
he is convicted.
The House Oversight Committee will hold the first hearing Thursday morning,
with Republicans framing the session as a "refresher course" on the panel's
work so far.
But opponents say the idea is simply to have a damaging open-ended inquiry
going into an election year, and that an impeachment would never have
sufficient support in the House, where the Republicans have a razor-thin
majority.
The probe has already obtained more than 12,000 pages of subpoenaed bank
records from Biden family members and hours of testimony from Hunter's
business associates and from federal investigators.
"(The) problem they have is not that they can't get the evidence. The problem
they have is that the evidence does not support their allegations," Dan
Goldman, a Democratic congressman and the lead counsel in Republican former
president Donald Trump's own first impeachment, said recently in Congress.
"And so why are we going to spend the next few months on bogus and sham
impeachment inquiry? Because Donald Trump wants them to, and Donald Trump has
been calling them and urging them to do it, because he was impeached twice."
- 'Smearing Joe Biden' -
One allegation being advanced by Republicans -- that Biden was bribed by
Ukrainian firm Burisma, where Hunter Biden served on the board -- is based on
an anonymous tip that Trump's Justice Department investigated and dropped.
A related theory -- debunked by multiple federal officials -- involves false
allegations that, as vice president, Biden got a Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor
Shokin fired to benefit Burisma.
In fact, it was US and European Union policy that Shokin was hampering
efforts to combat corruption in the ex-Soviet nation and needed to go.
Republicans have also presented a former business partner of Hunter Biden,
Devon Archer, as a star witness who would offer damning evidence that the
president made money from his son's contacts.
Pressed repeatedly, he testified that he had never seen or heard the younger
Biden discuss business with his father.
Republicans seized on Archer's testimony that the president had greeted his
son's associates during numerous family telephone calls, claiming Biden had
helped his son create the impression that his contacts had access to the
White House.
But they have presented no evidence of influence-peddling by Biden himself.
Republicans also claim Biden interfered with a criminal investigation into
various allegations against Hunter but, again, the claim looks thin since the
president's son was indicted on gun charges by a Trump-appointed prosecutor
that newly elected Biden allowed to complete his investigation.
