Yahoo Lifestyle Joe Biden Blasts “Baseless” GOP-Led House Vote To Formally Authorize Impeachment Inquiry – Update
UPDATED with Joe Biden statement: The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, a move Democrats say is being made without evidence of wrongdoing and at the behest of his likely rival in 2024, Donald Trump.
The vote was along party lines, 221-212.
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From the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Biden quickly shot back, calling the inquiry vote a “baseless political stunt.”
The inquiry means that Congress, for a third time in four years, likely will be engulfed in an impeachment proceeding. Trump was impeached twice, in 2019 and 2021, when Democrats held the House, but he was acquitted in the Senate.
It didn’t take long for the White House to respond to the expected vote. Less than half an hour after the Republican win, POTUS tried to flip the script.
“I wake up every day focused on the issues facing the American people – real issues that impact their lives, and the strength and security of our country and the world,” Biden said in a statement referencing international and domestic concerns. “Unfortunately, House Republicans are not joining me. Instead of doing anything to help make Americans’ lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies.
“The American people deserve better. I know what I am going to remain focused on. I would invite Republicans in Congress to join me.”
Read the full statement below.
Today’s vote formalizes what House Republicans already have been doing, as Kevin McCarthy, when he was still Speaker, launched an impeachment inquiry in September. But he did not bring it to the floor for a vote.
The inquiry is focusing in part on Biden’s role in his son Hunter’s business dealings, on the theory that they played a role in his efforts to shape Ukraine policy when he was vice president.
Biden has denied such claims, and his allies have noted that many of the allegations were debunked during Trump’s first impeachment.
At the center of the inquiry is Hunter Biden, whose position on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and whether that influenced his father’s efforts to hold back a $1 billion loan guarantee in 2016 unless the company fired top prosecutor Viktor Shokin. A Senate report in 2020, though, failed to find that Hunter Biden’s position influenced U.S. policy. Other countries also had pushed for Shokin’s removal, while other Ukrainian officials have said that he was not investigating Burisma at the time.
Republicans, led by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the chair of the House Oversight Committee, have alleged corruption on the part of the Biden family, claiming that it reaped millions. But even some Republicans, like Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), say that the GOP lacks evidence.
Trump was impeached for trying to withhold aid to Ukraine unless it investigated Biden, and Democrats contend that the inquiry is the GOP way to try to tarnish Biden as the 2024 election approaches.
Hunter Biden appeared on Capitol Hill earlier Wednesday to offer to testify publicly in response to a subpoena. But House Republicans demanded that he testify in private, and instead are launching contempt of Congress proceedings against him. Biden also said that his father had no involvement in his business dealings.
“Let me state as clearly as I can,” Biden said, “my father was not financially involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma, not in my partnership with the Chinese private businessman, not in my investments home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist.”
Here is President Biden’s full statement:
The American people need their leaders in Congress to take action on important priorities for the nation and world.
On Tuesday, I met with the President of Ukraine, who is leading his people in a battle for freedom against Russian aggression. He came to America to ask us for help. Yet Republicans in Congress won’t act to help.
The people of Israel are in a battle against terrorists, and they are waiting for our help. Yet Republicans in Congress won’t act to help.We have to address the situation at our southern border, and I am determined to try to fix the problem. We need funding to strengthen border security, but Republicans in Congress won’t act to help.
We need to continue our progress on the economy and make sure inflation keeps going down and job growth keeps going up. That means avoiding self-inflicted economic crises like a government shutdown, which Republicans in Congress are driving us toward in just a few weeks because they won’t act now to fund the government and critical priorities to make life better for the American people.
There is a lot of work to be done. But after wasting weeks trying to find a new Speaker of the House and having to expel their own members, Republicans in Congress are leaving for a month without doing anything to address these pressing challenges.
I wake up every day focused on the issues facing the American people – real issues that impact their lives, and the strength and security of our country and the world. Unfortunately, House Republicans are not joining me. Instead of doing anything to help make Americans’ lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies. Instead of doing their job on the urgent work that needs to be done, they are choosing to waste time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts.
The American people deserve better. I know what I am going to remain focused on. I would invite Republicans in Congress to join me.
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