House Republicans released a resolution on Thursday morning to officially authorize their impeachment inquiry into President Biden ahead of an expected vote next week.
The resolution, introduced by Representative Kelly Armstrong (R., N.D.), directs Republican-led House committees to determine “whether sufficient grounds exist” to impeach Biden based on the evidence and testimony collected in recent months from their various ongoing probes into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings and other alleged criminal activity.
The move to formalize the impeachment inquiry comes after then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that an impeachment probe was underway in September, without formally authorizing the move through a floor vote. A markup of the resolution is scheduled for Tuesday.
House Republicans hope that formally authorizing the impeachment inquiry will add legal weight to their investigative efforts and compel cooperation from various witnesses, given that the White House has argued that the probe is unconstitutional because it has not been authorized by the broader House.
“Constitutionally, it’s not required. Speaker said we’re [in] an impeachment inquiry, [then] we’re in an impeachment inquiry,” Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) told reporters earlier this week. “But if you have a vote of the full House of Representatives and the majority say we’re in that official status as part of our overall oversight work or constitutional oversight duty that we have, it just helps us in court.”
The resolution points to the investigative work done by the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees, which have together compiled evidence that Hunter Biden ran a lucrative foreign influence-peddling scheme during his father’s time serving as vice president and thereafter. In recent weeks, the committees have begun to release documents which they claim constitute evidence that Joe Biden actively participated in — and benefitted from — Hunter’s dealings, including an eleven-page log of email metadata which shows that then-vice president Biden exchanged hundreds of emails with Hunter’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, under an alias.
In early November, House Republicans subpoenaed Hunter as part of the broader impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
On Wednesday, House Oversight chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) threatened to hold the president’s son in contempt of Congress if he does not appear on Capitol Hill next week to testify. Earlier in the day, Hunter Biden’s legal counsel Abbe Lowell reiterated his client’s willingness to appear before Congress in a public hearing, rather than behind closed doors, as Comer and his committee demanded.
“He is making this choice because the Committee has demonstrated time and again it uses closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort, the facts and misinform the American public – a hearing would ensure transparency and truth in these proceedings,” Lowell said in a statement.
Comer responded by pointing out that Biden is required to appear under the conditions set by the committee and is not free to determine in what setting he will testify.
“Contrary to the assertions in your letter, there is no ‘choice’ for Mr. Biden to make; the subpoenas compel him to appear for a deposition on December 13,” Comer wrote in response. “If Mr. Biden does not appear for his deposition on December 13, 2023, the Committees will initiate contempt of Congress proceedings,” the chairman wrote in a letter co-signed by House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan (R., Ohio).