Republican-led House authorises Biden impeachment inquiry; US prez calls it ‘baseless political stunt’

The United States House of Representatives, on Wednesday (Dec 13) voted to formally authorise its ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over his son Hunter’s controversial international dealings even though they are yet to find evidence of wrongdoing by the Democratic incumbent. Biden has since slammed the vote as a “baseless political stunt".

About the vote

The GOP-led House voted 221-212 along party lines to approve the probe with all Republicans voting in favour and all Democrats voting against it. The inquiry is examining whether Biden improperly benefited from his 53-year-old son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

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The vote came hours after the US president’s son refused a call to testify behind closed doors and defied a subpoena.

While House Republicans are yet to provide evidence of corruption. The Democratic-led Senate is unlikely to convict the incumbent president even if the inquiry did lead to an actual impeachment trial.

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The vote also took place as the House was due to leave Washington for a year-end holiday break of more than three weeks.

House Republicans have accused the incumbent Democratic president and his family of improperly profiting from policy decisions that Biden made when he was serving as the vice president during President Barack Obama’s administration between 2009 and 2017.

Biden slams ‘baseless political stunt’

The incumbent president swiftly denounced the vote and said, “Instead of doing their job on the urgent work that needs to be done, they (Republicans) are choosing to waste time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts.”

No evidence

The effort which will almost certainly fail to remove Biden from office has time and time again been dismissed by the White House and said that the inquiry is unsubstantiated by facts and politically motivated.

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Republicans ramped up efforts to impeach Biden ahead of the 2024 presidential election where he might potentially face a rematch with his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump who became the first US president in American history to be impeached twice and is currently preparing for four upcoming criminal trials.

The Wednesday vote comes three months after Republicans informally began the probe when then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy directed a House committee to open an impeachment inquiry, which alone would not be a required step to remove a president or other official from office.

However, the recent vote and authorisation could give Republicans more legal authority to force the Biden administration to cooperate. So far, Republicans have highlighted Hunter’s business ventures in Ukraine and China when Biden was the VP.

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They have also turned up evidence that the 53-year-old son of the incumbent president led clients to believe that he could provide access to the vice president’s office, but they are yet to provide any proof that Biden himself took any official action to help those businesses or benefited financially from them.

“There is no evidence to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business because it did not happen,” said Hunter. On Monday (Dec 11), he defied a committee subpoena to testify behind closed doors, saying that he would only testify in public amid fears that his words would otherwise be misrepresented.

(With inputs from agencies)