President Biden Impeachment Inquiry Official

The House of Representatives has officially authorized an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, formalizing their years-long fishing expedition against the president in a floor vote on Wednesday.

Lawmakers voted 221-212 along party lines to approve the resolution authorizing the inquiry.

Before being ousted from the speakership by his own party, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) initiated a vote-less, officially unofficial impeachment inquiry into the president. His successor, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced his decision to move forward with a floor vote to legitimize the probe via an op-ed in USA Today on Tuesday morning. 

Johnson wrote that the vote will officially authorize the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees to “continue investigating the role of the president in promoting the alleged influence-peddling schemes of his family and associates, the orchestration of which reaped millions of dollars in payments from America’s foreign adversaries.” 

While Johnson writes that Republicans “will not prejudge this investigation,” the very fact that they are moving forward with an inquiry despite having failed to produce concrete evidence of financial misconduct by President Biden speaks to the transparent political nature of the proceedings.

On Monday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan told reporters that the investigation may center around allegations that President Biden and his son Hunter Biden profiteered from unethical deals with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. These allegations have been widely disproven virtually since their inception. Multiple efforts by Republicans to link Hunter Biden’s business dealings, as well as behavior stemming from his struggle with addiction to the president, with few results. Hunter himself has been charged with criminal tax violations and unlawful possession of a firearm, but the cases have failed to establish a link to his father. 

On Wednesday, Hunter Biden openly defied a subpoena from House Republicans demanding that he appear in person to testify before Congress in a closed-door session. Biden, who had offered to provide his testimony in a public setting — per a past offer made by Oversight Committe Chair James Comer — held a press conference outside of the Capitol in which he decried Republicans’ use of  “distortions, manipulated evidence, and lies,” to impugn his character and career. 

Hunter admitted that he was “extremely irresponsible with my finances” but said that “to suggest that is grounds for an impeachment inquiry is beyond the absurd. It is shameless.” 

Lacking a smoking gun, Republicans, including Johnson, had previously been hesitant to move forward with a political process that could engineer public blowback in an election year. Johnson had been critical of partisan impeachment proceedings, in general. As reported by CNN earlier this week, Johnson heavily criticized Democrats for initiating impeachment proceedings against former President Donald Trump along party lines, and in the months leading into an election year — which is the exact strategy Johnson is pursuing now.  

“If you don’t like the president, he goes on a ballot again after four years,” Johnson said in December of 2019. “We have an election in 11 months. Let the people decide this.”