The investigation into President Biden commenced last year with allegations of high crimes and misdemeanors that Republicans have since struggled to support.
Lacking support and evidence, the GOP-led impeachment inquiry against President Biden continued to sputter out, even as House Republicans on Wednesday held a hearing that featured witnesses who reiterated thin allegations that members of the Biden family capitalized financially on their father’s name.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) commenced the investigation into Biden last year with allegations of high crimes and misdemeanors that Republicans have since struggled to support. Fifteen months later, no evidence or testimony obtained by congressional Republicans has showed that Joe Biden was a direct participant in or beneficiary of his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings. And while some of Hunter Biden’s close associates have placed his father in proximity to those involved with some of the deals — undermining the president’s claims he was unaware of Hunter’s activities — none of the allegations have met Republican claims that Hunter Biden’s business activities fueled an influence-peddling operation that enriched Joe Biden and his family.
With a threadbare majority, House Republicans need near unanimity to approve articles of impeachment against the president, which they do not have. Instead, skepticism among rank-and-file Republicans has only grown since an FBI informant was charged with lying about the Bidens, an implosion of what had been presented as a major piece of evidence.
In the absence of those votes, Comer and other members of the investigating committees have pivoted to the possibility of criminal referrals. Comer has threatened to make “multiple” criminal referrals, but it remains unclear whether lawmakers will formally accuse President Biden of a crime and what crimes they allege may have been committed.
“I’m not sure how we would have a criminal referral of the president yet not move forward with impeachment,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) said. “I mean the [Justice Department] is never going to take that up anyway.”
Armstrong, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, added that the committee could pursue criminal referrals around violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act for several witnesses who have testified before the committee. Hunter Biden, who declined to appear Wednesday, is facing nine criminal charges in a long-running federal tax case and felony gun charges.
“My views on impeachment in general? It’s a very high bar that they need to meet, and they needed to convince their colleagues that it was the right thing to do,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said. “If they are declining to bring articles of impeachment, I think that is the right decision.”
The apparent collapse of one of the House GOP’s marquee investigations was preceded by a string of incidents where Comer, who has been criticized by even some Republican colleagues for his Fox News-centric approach to the investigation, elevated allegations against Biden and his son before they publicly fizzled. Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, in his opening statement Wednesday called the hearing “the end of perhaps the most spectacular failure in the history of congressional investigations.”
“Our colleagues now are apparently preparing to save face by ending the impeachment farce with criminal referrals,” Raskin said. “But criminal referrals require evidence of crimes.
