WASHINGTON – Members of the House of Representatives will gather Thursday for a closed-door briefing on the status of the newly launched impeachment inquiry into President Biden, which is expected to feature numerous requests for records that may eventually be resolved by the court system.
The chairman of the three committees leading the official investigation will outline plans to examine bank records, diplomatic files, flight manifests and emails registered under Biden’s pseudonym to determine the extent of his role in the affairs of his son and brother in countries such as China and Ukraine.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) launched a rare impeachment process on Tuesday, saying that evidence showed that Biden lied about his involvement in the efforts of eldest son Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who has led a months-long investigation into Biden’s role in foreign dealings, will brief most of the 222-member GOP conference along with Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). and tax-focused Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who has been handling inquiries into alleged Justice Department cover-ups.
The wide-ranging investigation is expected to feature aggressive demands for records dating back to Biden’s eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president—with litigation to enforce subpoenas ready, if necessary.
House Republicans will gather Thursday for a closed-door briefing on the status of the newly launched impeachment inquiry into President Biden.Getty Images
“We know that someone is paying a large portion of Joe’s expenses because he’s living beyond his means,” a source close to McCarthy told The Post.
“One objective of the investigation is to determine whether the Ukrainian or Russian oligarchs or the Chinese Communist Party were his benefactors, using Jim and Hunter Biden as conduits to launder the money.”
A prominent House Republican aide told The Post that fence-sitting Republicans are “already” being swayed to support the investigation.
Another Hill source said that Comer will outline “the evidence that the Oversight Committee has uncovered regarding President Biden’s involvement in his family’s influence peddling scheme and the progress being made to hold the DOJ accountable for misconduct in the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden.”
Comer’s statement will focus on “progress made since Republicans last met in July.”
The chairman of the committee leading the investigation will outline plans to examine bank records, diplomatic files, flight manifests and emails registered to Biden’s pseudonym to determine the extent of his role in his son’s affairs. Teresa Kroeger
There is evidence that the president interacts with his close friends in almost all of their lucrative affairs, including dining twice in Washington with Hunter’s Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakh friends, hosting Mexican friends at the vice president’s residence, participating in 20 speaker phone calls with Hunter friends. and met personally with associates of Hunter and James from two different ventures with Chinese government-related entities.
Biden said in June that he supported it claim that he “never spoke” to his son about his “overseas business dealings.”
Hunter, now 53, wrote in messages taken from his abandoned laptop that he had to give “half” of his earnings to his father and Comer in May described nine members of the Biden family who allegedly received foreign earnings. There was also evidence Hunter paid at least some of Joe’s bills, including for phone service.
Republicans have yet to prove whether Joe Biden directly benefited financially, however, from the foreign income stream or whether Hunter and James actually covered most of his living expenses.
The Oversight Committee on Tuesday said it would subpoena the bank records of Hunter and James Biden — after tracing the flow of several foreign funds, including millions from China and Romania, through the bank records of their business partner Rob Walker.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) launched a rare impeachment process on Tuesday, saying that evidence showed that Biden lied about his involvement in the efforts of eldest son Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden.Getty Images
The panel put on hold the Biden family’s bank records claim earlier this year out of fear of a court dispute.
The launch of the impeachment inquiry will strengthen the House’s position if there is a legal challenge to the bank’s records.
McCarthy signaled last month that Republicans could eventually request the president’s own bank statements to see if he received foreign income.
The Oversight Committee has spent months building up a litany of largely unanswered requests for documents. In a new request on Tuesday, it demanded the State Department detail the evolution of US policy toward Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who the president says he fired in 2016 using US foreign aid as leverage.
Recently reported documents show other US officials were surprised by the US help Biden received for Shokin’s removal in early 2016 and an FBI whistleblower file released in July said the owner of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, Mykola Zlochevsky, claimed in 2016 he “forced” to pay $10 million in bribes to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for the then-vice president’s help in ousting Shokin.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who has led a months-long investigation into Biden’s role in foreign affairs, will brief most of the 222-member GOP conference.AP
Burisma paid Hunter Biden up to $1 million a year starting in April 2014, when his father assumed control of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, and the company’s board adviser Vadym Pozharsyi had dinner with the then-vice president in DC in April 2015.
Biden had argued Shokin was fired for his own corruption and called the bribery allegations “malarkey” in June, asking, “Where’s the money?”
Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, whose office has led a criminal investigation of Hunter Biden that could soon result in indictments for tax weapons, illegal gun possession and other crimes, has refused to provide information to Congress about Burisma’s alleged corruption, saying in July that it was part of an “ongoing investigation”.
The National Archives, meanwhile, has been targeted for some of the most potentially explosive requests, including about 5,400 documents — mostly emails — from vice president Biden in which he used the pseudonyms “Robert L. Peters” and “Robin Ware.”
The Archives missed an Aug. 31 deadline to turn over emails and have yet to provide documents in response to other Oversight Committee requests, including for Joe Biden’s official calendar as vice president and the Air Force Two flight manifest featuring Hunter Biden and his business associates.
Only five presidents have previously been subject to an impeachment inquiry, which increases the power of Congress to obtain documents through the court system if executive branch agencies do not comply.
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Presidents John Tyler and Richard Nixon ultimately went unchallenged — in Nixon’s case because he resigned in 1974 after Republicans began supporting his removal following the release of court-ordered tapes proving he was involved in covering up the Watergate break-in.
The Biden impeachment inquiry differs from others over the past century — against Nixon, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump — in that it focuses on a wide range of alleged wrongdoing by Biden, rather than specific actions, and the alleged conduct occurred largely in the years before he presidency.
The Constitution says that the House can impeach the president for “Treason, Corruption, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors” and the decision whether to do so is left to members of Congress.
The Senate must convict the president by a two-thirds vote — a high threshold that results in four acquittals and no removal from office.
McCarthy launched the investigation without a promised floor vote after some Republicans said the House’s focus should remain on spending cuts ahead of a Sept. 30 government funding deadline and others said they knew of no evidence that would justify impeachment proceedings.
Republicans hold a narrow advantage in the House, meaning only five defectors can sink the eventual articles of impeachment.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday said the investigation was “baseless” and White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams issued a “memo to editorial leadership” at a major news outlet claiming that the investigation “has no evidence that Joe Biden did anything. wrong,” which “should set off alarm bells for news organizations.”
Sams has highlighted GOP House members who have recently expressed concern about the inquiry, including Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) said he “sees no facts or evidence at this point” and Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) said, “There is a constitutional and legal test that you have to meet with evidence. I haven’t seen that evidence, but I guess I’m not suggesting it doesn’t exist.”
The Oversight Committee on Wednesday published a list of 22 instances in which Joe Biden allegedly played a role in his family’s foreign affairs, in most cases while he steered US policy as vice president.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
