“Give us his bank statements.” That was House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s demand of President Joe Biden on Fox News’ Sean Hannity show Monday night, with Republicans preparing an impeachment inquiry.
McCarthy, a California Republican, said the evidence already public was reason enough for the family to speak up. “I think there’s enough proof out there that this Biden family needs to come forward and show there wasn’t a pay to play,” he said. His trigger was testimony the week before from Devon Archer, a former associate of Hunter Biden. According to the New York Post, Archer tied Joe Biden to about two dozen phone calls and in-person meetings with his son’s foreign patrons. Raw Story’s account put the figure at at least a dozen calls and noted that Archer said business was not discussed.
What an inquiry would do
McCarthy first floated an impeachment inquiry in late July. He told Hannity it would give Congress, Republicans and Democrats on the committees alike, a way to get information “if somebody fights from providing it to them.”
The White House did not immediately say whether Biden would hand over his statements. In June, he ignored a reporter’s question on the subject during a gaggle on the White House lawn. In the same exchange he denied involvement in a July 30, 2017, WhatsApp message in which Hunter Biden told a Chinese government-linked businessman he was “sitting here with my father.” Days later, roughly $5 million went into Biden-linked bank accounts, the Post reported.
The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed bank records belonging to many of the business partners of Hunter Biden and of James Biden, the president’s brother. In May that let the panel allege foreign payments reached nine Biden family members. It has not subpoenaed records of the president or his relatives.
Votes and timing
Sources close to the discussions told the Post that Republicans plan more witnesses and further evidence before a floor vote to open the inquiry. The margin is thin. McCarthy can lose only four Republican votes, so skeptical moderates would have to be won over.
The speaker describes an inquiry as separate from impeachment itself, saying it only gives lawmakers stronger investigative powers. The Post noted that articles of impeachment would almost certainly follow. A start in late September is possible, though some Republican sources expect October because a government funding fight will take priority when the House returns from recess on Sept. 12. That timetable would push a final House vote, and a possible Senate trial, to about January.
Scope, and the Democratic response
McCarthy suggested the inquiry could range widely. He named the alleged coverup in the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s links to family associates. He also said Republicans would look further at a bribery allegation that Biden, as vice president, was paid to push for the removal of Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin as a favor to the gas firm Burisma Holdings. Burisma paid Hunter Biden up to $1 million per year.
He said the Biden family does not “produce any products,” and asked: “If you’re an expert when it comes to foreign policy, why isn’t it Italy or the UK or France hiring you?”
Democrats have answered that many powerful Washington families take foreign income, and they cast the Biden probes as a diversion from Donald Trump’s legal troubles. Trump had been criminally charged for the third time that year the week before. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on Oversight, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that influence in Washington often rests on family connections. He said he had repeatedly asked Republicans to examine that in a “serious and substantive and methodical and non-partisan way.”
Only three presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, the last of them twice. The Senate acquitted all three.
Sources
- McCarthy demands Biden ‘give us his bank statements’ as impeachment probe looms
- Kevin McCarthy demands Biden's 'bank statements' as impeachment inquiry gears up: report
