This procedure has almost no chance of success. The US Congress approved, on Wednesday December 13, the formal opening of an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, motivated by his son’s controversial affairs abroad, and described as a “baseless political stunt” by the president. A new headache for the White House before the presidential election in November 2024, for which Joe Biden is a candidate.
Conservatives, in the majority in the House of Representatives since January, accuse the Democratic leader of having used his influence when he was Barack Obama’s vice-president (2009-2017) to allow his son to do questionable business in China and in Ukraine. “Joe Biden repeatedly lied to the American people,” accused the head of the House investigative committee, James Comer, from the chamber. The president, the Democrats, and his son deny these accusations outright.
The Republicans “are choosing to waste their time with a baseless political scheme” accused Joe Biden after the vote. “Instead of working to make Americans’ lives better, their priority is to attack me with lies,” he said in a statement.
“Errors”
“My father was never financially involved in my affairs,” had already brushed off Hunter Biden, who had become a prime target of the right, during a rare press conference Wednesday morning. Present before the American Congress, the fifty-year-old, with a past marked by addictions and indicted in two cases by the courts, admitted to having made “mistakes” in his life.
But he accused “the Trumpists” of trying to “dehumanize” him, to “harm” his father. For this reason, he refused to participate in a closed-door hearing organized by the Republicans, who had summoned him to appear at the Capitol. The 81-year-old president has always publicly supported Hunter Biden, often repeating that he is “proud” of him.
“Responses to the American People”
An impeachment investigation, long demanded by elected officials close to Donald Trump against whom Joe Biden could face in 2024, had already been opened against the Democratic president in the summer. A first parliamentary hearing was even organized on the subject at the end of September, during which the experts interviewed agreed that there was currently nothing to justify an indictment of President Biden.
“There is no evidence that President Biden committed any wrongdoing,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries added on Wednesday. The Republicans, however, believe that the formal opening of the investigation, adopted by their votes alone, will offer them additional powers, and therefore new possibilities to incriminate the Democratic leader.
“The time has come to provide answers to the American people,” said the Speaker of the House, Republican Mike Johnson, on Wednesday after the vote, assuring that he would not take this investigation “lightly.”
Trump impeached twice
The U.S. Constitution provides that Congress can impeach the president for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The procedure takes place in two stages.
After carrying out its investigation, the House of Representatives votes, by a simple majority, on articles of indictment detailing the facts alleged against the president: this is what is called “impeachment” in English. If the indictment were to be voted on, the Senate, the upper house of Congress, would then put the president on trial. However, he would very likely be acquitted, Joe Biden’s party being in the majority in this chamber.
Never has a president been impeached in American history. Three were impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021. But all were ultimately acquitted. Richard Nixon preferred to resign in 1974 to avoid certain impeachment by Congress due to the Watergate scandal.