The US president and his family earned nearly $30 million in a “conspiracy to peddle influence,” Republicans have claimed
Republican investigators have released their impeachment inquiry report on Joe Biden, accusing the US president of influence-peddling and obstruction. However, any effort to remove Biden from office is unlikely to succeed.
Released on Monday by the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees, the report claims that Biden and his family used their family name and connections to the White House to solicit over $27 million from businessmen and political figures in China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine.
Citing witness testimony and documents obtained from Biden’s son Hunter’s laptop, the report alleges that Hunter met with these foreign clients and promised them access to his father, who at the time was serving as vice president of the US. Despite denying any knowledge of his son’s business dealings, “Biden met or spoke with nearly every one of the Biden family’s foreign business associates, including those from Ukraine, China, Russia, and Kazakhstan,” the report claimed.
At the time of most of these meetings, Hunter Biden was sitting on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma. This position earned him just under $1 million per year, despite having no experience in the energy industry.
The obstruction charge stems from Biden’s Justice Department supposedly “slow-walking” an investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax affairs, as well as the White House’s alleged withholding of key witnesses and documents related to the impeachment inquiry. Furthermore, the report accused the White House of obstructing a probe into Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents by refusing to turn over audio recordings of the president’s testimony to special counsel Robert Hur.
Hur declined to charge Biden over the documents case earlier this year, declaring that the president came across in the recordings as an “elderly man with a poor memory” who would be difficult to convict in a jury trial.
“The Constitution’s remedy for a President’s flagrant abuse of office is clear: impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal by the Senate,” the committees wrote in Monday’s report, adding that the report would be sent to the House “for its evaluation and consideration of appropriate next steps.”
However, House Speaker Mike Johnson has given no indication that he intends to hold a vote to impeach Biden, and despite the GOP holding an eight-seat majority in the House, dozens of Republicans have said they would not support an impeachment vote without more concrete proof of illegal activity by Biden.
Furthermore, Biden would likely be acquitted by the Senate, where his party holds a razor thin 51-49 majority. Two Democrat-led efforts to impeach former President Donald Trump were defeated in this way by the Republican-controlled Senate in 2020 and 2021.
