Three Republican-controlled House committees accused President Joe Biden of engaging in “impeachable conduct,” stating there is “overwhelming evidence” to support it, but admitted they have no evidence to prove that the president committed a crime.
Republicans on the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees released a 291-page report on Monday accusing Biden of abuse of power and obstruction of justice.
The report claims Biden, as vice president, “abused” his office to enrich his family in connection with his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings and mishandled classified information.
“The totality of the corrupt conduct uncovered by the Committees is egregious. President Joe Biden conspired to commit influence peddling and grift. In doing so, he abused his office and, by repeatedly lying about his abuse of office, has defrauded the United States to enrich his family,” the report states.
House Republicans also accused the White House of interfering with the investigation into Hunter Biden by instructing witnesses to not cooperate or to comply with subpoenas.
However, in each of these circumstances, the House committees said they did not need to have direct proof that he committed these alleged impeachable acts.
Regarding the abuse of power allegation, the report says: “It is not necessary for the House of Representatives to show that the dealings involved a quid pro quo to rise to the level of an impeachable offense.”
The report also suggests that the House panels do not need to show that Biden accepted a bribe or committed a crime to show his “abuse of power”, but instead, argued that it is only necessary to show that Biden was “aware” of the scheme and participated in it. The House Republicans described that this threshold was due to the “ cheapening of the impeachment power by Democrats in recent years,” referring to the two impeachments of Donald Trump.
“In 2019, House Democrats asserted that impeachable offenses need not rise to the level of criminal conduct, noting that Congress reached the same conclusion during the impeachments of President Nixon and President Clinton,” the panels wrote. “The House may therefore impeach President Biden for non-criminal conduct that significantly impairs the political system or betrays the public trust.”
The same standard was applied to the obstruction of justice charge. “The House need not find that President Biden’s misconduct met the standard for obstruction of justice provided in federal statutes regarding obstruction of justice,” the report states, before referring to the 2019 impeachment of Trump.
The report also offered detailed descriptions of Hunter and James Biden’s “shady” business practices overseas, implying that he made millions in exchange for access to his father and influence in the US. However, House Republicans fell short of substantiating those claims.
“The Committees have obtained evidence of how the Biden family leveraged Joe Biden’s official position for financial gain. Indeed, in many ways, the entire business of Hunter Biden and James Biden centered around hinting at, alluding to, or outright promising what Joe Biden’s power could do for certain foreign interests,” the report states.
The Bidens have never been formally charged with any wrongdoing connected to their business ventures.
The committees deferred to the full House of Representatives to decide on whether to pursue the “next steps.” The report states: “Although the Committees’ fact-finding is ongoing amid President Biden’s obstruction, the evidence uncovered in the impeachment inquiry to date already amounts to impeachable conduct. The Committees present this information to the House of Representatives for its evaluation and consideration of appropriate next steps.” Even if passed in the GOP-controlled House, the effort is likely to be unsuccessful in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
The report arrived after 30 interviews, 30 subpoenas, six hearings, and after reviewing “millions of pages of documents,” the committees wrote.
But the inquiry into President Biden has been met with heavy scrutiny.
Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian businessman who traveled around the world with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani “tasked” to find “dirt” on the Biden family, testified in March that he had seen “precisely zero proof of the Bidens’ criminality.”
Additionally, in February special counsel Robert Hur, who was tasked with investigating the classified documents found at the president’s homes, recommended no criminal charges against Biden.
The GOP-led inquiry into Biden has not received total support from all members of their party while Democrats have repeatedly accused them of pursuing the impeachment inquiry as political retribution. Likely not by coincidence, the report was released on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, where later this week, Kamala Harris is expected to accept the Democratic nomination for president.
The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment on the report.