House Republican leadership is sure of one thing: they would like to start the the impeachment process process against Joe Biden. What is not so clear is why they would like to charge him.
In his first comments to the press about the impeachment investigation launched this week, Spokesman Kevin McCarthy spoke about “a picture of a culture of corruption” painted by the House Republican committees investigating hunter biden and his father, referencing a handful of accusations unearthed over the course of hearings and interviews.
At the center of the Republicans’ accusations are claims that Biden, as vice president, improperly benefited from his son’s foreign business partners and received millions in secret bribes. Some of the allegations involve reiterations of claims made by Rudy Giuliani during his attempt to dig up dirt on the Biden family, an effort that ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment trial.
The impeachment inquiry announced by McCarthy comes after months of investigations by the House Oversight and Judiciary committees into Hunter Biden’s business dealings since Republicans took control of the House in the midterm elections. 2022. These investigations have discovered a series of claims from scarce sources about the Bidens, but they have not produced much evidence that implicates the then vice president in any crime.
However, Republican leaders have been claiming for months that they can prove that Biden is a criminal traitor. “I am committed to ensuring that we uncover the truth about what I believe will prove to be the largest political and criminal corruption scandal in our nation’s history,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik. saying following McCarthy’s announcement on Tuesday.
So what are the main allegations against the Bidens that are likely to drive the Republican impeachment push and what’s behind them? Here is a guide:
What type of “influence peddling” is Hunter Biden accused of?
Some of the most cited testimonies about Biden’s alleged “influence peddling” cited by House Republicans comes from Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner at the private equity firm they co-founded, Rosemont Seneca Partners.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer praised Archer, who was convicted in 2022 in connection with an unrelated scheme to defraud a Native American tribe, as a potential “hero” of republican investigations in the Biden family. His accusations cast an unflattering light on the former president, but fell short of expectations that he would present evidence of wrongdoing.
Archer testified before the Oversight Committee in July, alleging that a “key component” of Hunter Biden’s involvement with foreign companies such as Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings, where he sat on the board, was using his last name as a “signal” and a ” brand” for potential business partners who helped “open doors.”
Archer also told committee Republicans that while Joe Biden was vice president he attended dinners with Hunter’s Russian and Kazakh business partners in Washington, D.C., and that Hunter sometimes called his father on speakerphone while attending dinners with business partners.
In other words: Hunter Biden was selling access to Joe. And through his calls and visits, the then vice president tacitly supported the work of his son.
The problem for Comer and Republicans is that Archer testified that Hunter’s use of his last name and his proximity to his father, the vice president, never led to official action being taken on his behalf. Pressed repeatedly by House Democrats, Archer said he knew of no case in which the vice president discussed business with his son or took any official action on behalf of his associates. Conversations between Biden and his son’s associates, Archer said, were limited to anodyne small talk.
Under questioning by Democrats, Archer also testified that Hunter and his father spoke more frequently at this time, following Beau Biden’s cancer diagnosis and death in 2015.
Who says Biden took bribes?
The most serious allegation made by Republicans, that then-Vice President Joe Biden received a $5 million bribe from Burima, is also among the least well-sourced, coming from a whistleblower who reiterated accusations unearthed by Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine.
In 2020, a confidential human source told the fbi that Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky had claimed that the Bidens forced him to pay them $10 million in bribes (5 million to Hunter Biden and $5 million to his father) so that then-Vice President Biden would pressure Ukraine to fire a prosecutor, Viktor. Shokin, who was supposedly investigating the company. The source also claimed that Zlochevsky had made 17 secret recordings of his conversations with the Bidens, two with Joe and 15 with Hunter.
Investigators found a trail record in 2020 during the investigation into allegations against the Biden family brought by Giuliani. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, says the Justice Department, under the direction of Attorney General Bill Barr, investigated the whistleblower’s claims, “including reviewing reports from suspicious activities and the interview of at least one confidential human source,” but closed the investigation. eight months later, alleging lack of evidence. Zlochevsky too was denied assistance of then Vice President Biden.
Why is a key Republican witness “missing”?
House Republicans also backed allegations by Gal Luft, an Israeli-American businessman who worked for CEFC, a Chinese energy company that engaged in joint ventures with Hunter Biden, netting the vice president’s scion millions of dollars.
Luft claims Chinese intelligence services linked officials funneled money to the Biden family and that Hunter Biden had a secret one-eyed FBI mole who early alerted CEFC founder Ye Jianming and his associate Patrick Ho that they were being investigated by the Bureau. (Ho was later convicted of bribery and money laundering in relation to commercial projects in Chad and Uganda).
Rep. Comer has called Luft a “whistleblower” and “a very credible witness,” but Luft is also an international fugitive following a accusation this summer by the Department of Justice in July. Federal prosecutors accused Luft of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China, smuggling Chinese weapons to Libya, violating U.S. sanctions with Iranian oil deals and lying to the FBI. Luft was arrested in Cyprus on a US extradition request, but fled while out on bail.
Luft claimed to have shared his information about the Bidens in a 2019 meeting with the FBI during an interview in Brussels. Prosecutors accused him of lying to FBI agents about his knowledge of CEFC’s dealings with Iran during that same interview. Luft has since claimed that the charges against him are political retaliation for his accusations against the Bidens. Democrats have asked Rep. Comer will investigate whether Luft’s allegations were made to “further the CCP’s efforts to undermine the security interests of the United States and the President of the United States.”
Now what?
The investigation comes at a precarious time for McCarthy, who has Long Face pressure from his group’s right flank to impeach Biden, as well as from former President Trump, who began calling on Republicans how often They planned to impeach Biden on the eve of his 2022 midterm victory.
Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a persistent McCarthy critic, strongly defended the investigation but said the president’s decision to move forward with impeachment will not affect far-right Republicans push for drastic spending cuts as the federal government faces a possible shutdown over the House’s inability to pass a budget.
But several Republicans have expressed their discomfort with the impeachment initiative. The White House, eager to take advantage of doubts within the House GOP, issued a memo to the media highlighting quotes from Republican members such as Representative Ken Buck (R-Colo.) who have said that the evidence to justify impeachment “does not exist at this time.”
Despite those evidentiary concerns, members of vulnerable districts They seem to remain steadfast in McCarthy’s impeachment crusade.