The US House of Representatives voted Wednesday to formalize an impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden, escalating Republicans’ battle with Democrats ahead of the 2024 election in a move Biden himself slammed as a “baseless” stunt.
Republicans, focusing on Biden’s son Hunter’s controversial international dealings, have yet to provide evidence of the president’s corruption, and even if the investigation did lead to an impeachment trial, the Democratic-led Senate would be unlikely to convict him.
Regardless, the procedure provides Republicans with a new, high-profile platform to attack Biden as he campaigns for reelection—and to divert attention away from the federal criminal trials in which his almost certain opponent, Donald Trump, is embroiled.
The vote was 221 to 212, with every Republican voting for it and every Democrat voting against it.
Conservatives accuse Biden’s troubled son Hunter of using the family name in pay-to-play schemes during his business dealings in Ukraine and China.
The allegations against the president’s son concern incidents that occurred before his father was elected president, and the White House has stated that there was no wrongdoing.
Biden responded immediately after the vote, accusing Republicans of stalling on key issues like government funding while obsessing over political points ahead of the election.
“Instead of doing anything to help make Americans’ lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies,” Biden said in a statement.
“Instead of doing their job on the urgent work that needs to be done, they are choosing to waste time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts.”
“As President Biden continues to stonewall lawful Congressional subpoenas, today’s vote of the full House of Representatives authorizing the inquiry puts us in the strongest position to enforce these subpoenas in court,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson and other members of Republican leadership.
“The American people deserve answers,” they said in a joint statement. “This impeachment inquiry will help us find them.”
Hunter Biden, whose tumultuous personal life and business dealings have sparked right-wing conspiracy theories and media investigations, issued an angry statement in Washington.
“My father was not financially involved in my business,” he said.
Hunter Biden, a Yale-educated lawyer and lobbyist-turned-artist whose life has been marred by personal tragedy, alcoholism, and crack cocaine addiction, spoke to reporters from Capitol Hill after refusing to attend a closed-door hearing led by Republicans just inside.
The Republican Party began investigating a possible impeachment earlier this year, spurred on by Trump, who was impeached twice, including for his attempts to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss to Biden. Hearings began in late September, leading to the decision to hold the vote on Wednesday.
The investigations, according to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, have “revealed how Joe Biden knew of, participated in, and benefited from his family cashing in on the Biden name around the world.”
Experts interviewed during the proceedings, on the other hand, said there was no evidence to support an impeachment of the US president.
Democrats claim the Republicans are purely political.
“There is zero evidence that President Biden has engaged in any wrongdoing,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday.
The US Constitution states that Congress has the authority to remove a president for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Impeachment by the House, the political equivalent of a criminal indictment, would result in a Senate trial, with the president losing his job if convicted—an unlikely scenario for the US president given the chamber’s Democratic control.
Although three US presidents have been impeached—Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021—the Senate has never removed them from office.
