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House Republicans voted Wednesday to formally authorize an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/12/biden-impeachment-inquiry-meaning/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">impeachment inquiry</a> against President Biden in an effort to strengthen their oversight powers as Republican lawmakers continue to investigate the Biden family’s finances.

The inquiry, which was launched without a vote in September by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), then serving as speaker, has so far failed to prove the GOP’s claim that Biden benefited financially from his son’s foreign investment deals.

The vote brought about by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), however, had near-unanimous support among Republicans and comes after the president’s son Hunter Biden on Wednesday defied a congressional subpoena in the probe. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Joe Biden</a> is the eighth president to face an<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/09/12/impeachment-inquiries-presidents/" target=_blank> impeachment investigation</a>.

No Democrats voted in support of the measure, which passed on a vote of 221-212.

Ahead of the vote, Democrats took to the House floor to denounce Republicans for engaging in what they described as a conspiracy-fueled fishing expedition designed as retribution for the two impeachments of former president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a>. Republicans, meanwhile, argued that the administration was obstructing their investigation by failing to fully comply with the committees’ subpoenas, and accused the president of lying about his involvement with his son’s foreign business dealings.

“Hunter Biden did a press conference — he was supposed to be in a deposition,” said House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “And at that press conference, he said ‘my father was not financially involved in the business.’ Well, that’s an important qualifier. We haven’t heard that for three years. … All we’ve heard is Joe Biden had no involvement. Now his son does a press conference when he’s supposed to be being deposed and says he wasn’t financially involved. Well, what involvement was it?”

The foundation of the impeachment inquiry, outlined by Jordan in a briefing with reporters last week, rests on an unsubstantiated allegation that has become the linchpin of conspiracy theories and false claims regarding the Biden family’s purported corrupt and criminal conduct. Republicans have alleged without evidence that Joe Biden as vice president pushed for the firing of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to quash a probe into the former owner of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden sat on the board. Former U.S. officials, Ukrainian anti-corruption activists, and even some Republicans have rebutted that allegation.

As part of the year-long inquiry, House Republicans also have elevated claims that the Biden administration slowed a Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden’s financial background, but that testimony has been disputed repeatedly by officials involved in the case.

Biden in a lengthy statement ridiculed the vote as a “baseless House Republican impeachment stunt” and criticized them for not focusing on other issues including Ukraine and Israel, border security and inflation.

“There is a lot of work to be done,” he said. “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.”

Referencing the impeachment vote, he added, “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.”

Some vulnerable Republican lawmakers previously were resistant to voting on impeachment — and remained opposed to proceeding with formal articles of impeachment given the underwhelming evidence Republican investigators have gathered. But after White House special counsel Dick Sauber <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/17/biden-impeachment-subpoena-white-house/" target=_blank>issued a Nov. 17 letter</a> challenging the legitimacy of the inquiry and demanding that subpoenas and requests for interviews with Biden family members and White House aides be rescinded, GOP lawmakers rallied behind the idea of strengthening the House’s legal hand by moving to authorize the investigation with a vote.

“The House will likely need to go to court to enforce its subpoenas, and opening a formal inquiry — backed by a vote of the full body — puts us in the strongest legal position to gather the evidence and provide transparency to the American people,” Johnson <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/12/12/biden-impeachment-inquiry-vote-house-republicans-speaker-mike-johnson/71877294007/" target=_blank>said in an op-ed</a> published Tuesday morning.

Before the vote,<b> </b>at least one Republican remained skeptical of the GOP’s year-long investigation into Biden. Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.) told reporters Tuesday that he was still leaning toward voting against authorizing the inquiry. But while Buck said that he saw no link between the actions of Hunter and Joe Biden in Ukraine, he said he did not appreciate Sauber’s letter to Congress that indicated a defiant posture toward oversight efforts.

“I don’t like what the White House did when they sent back a letter saying, you haven’t passed an impeachment inquiry so we aren’t going to give you these documents — I don’t think that’s based on the Constitution,” Buck reasoned. “But at the same time, I don’t see the link between the actions of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. I think there’s lots of reasons to fire Viktor Shokin in Ukraine, and I don’t think it was related to Hunter Biden — so I’m really torn.”

On Wednesday, however, Buck voted to formalize the inquiry.

Johnson has sought to frame the vote in legal terms, assuring members that his decision to hold the vote was a “constitutional decision.” He also highlighted the fact that the House is not voting to impeach Biden but only to continue the investigation.

“All the moderates in our conference understand this is not a political decision,” Johnson said at a news conference last week. “This is a legal decision. This is a constitutional decision. And whether someone is for or against impeachment is of no import right now.”

Ross Godwin

Hunter Biden’s decision to skip his deposition only strengthened Johnson’s argument among GOP lawmakers. The president’s son made a statement from Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning, reiterating that he was willing to testify in a public hearing related to the inquiry, but that “Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics … or hear what I have to say.”

His legal team has pointed to past comments in which House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) all but dared Hunter Biden to testify — publicly or privately — and the team has said it does not trust House Republicans to avoid selectively leaking his testimony.

Over the past two weeks, Comer has rebuffed Hunter Biden’s offer to publicly testify before the committee, and Republicans vowed Wednesday to move expeditiously to initiate proceedings to hold him in contempt of Congress for defying their subpoena.

Hunter Biden “does not get to dictate the terms of the subpoena,” Comer told reporters outside an empty hearing room where the deposition was supposed to take place. Pressed about whether he has found evidence that the president had engaged in wrongdoing or criminal conduct, Comer said he had found “some very serious evidence,” before citing two examples of banking records he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/04/comer-mischaracterizes-hunter-biden-car-payment-reimbursement-his-dad/" target=_blank>has repeatedly mischaracterized</a>.

House Republicans have also focused on the president’s brother, James Biden, who has had various business interests and was involved with Hunter Biden in an arrangement with Chinese energy executives. Comer has raised questions about a 2018 personal check for $200,000 that Joe Biden received from his brother. The check was a loan repayment for money that Joe Biden had previously lent to James Biden.

The committee had earlier asked James Biden to do an interview Dec. 6, but he has yet to appear. Paul J. Fishman, an attorney for James Biden, said they “have been in contact with the Oversight Committee staff about their requests.”

During a briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre largely declined to respond to questions about Hunter Biden or his decision not to comply with the subpoena.

Asked generally if the president thinks congressional subpoenas should be adhered to, she said: “I’m just not going to speak to that. I’m just not.”

And asked whether the president still had the same position as he did in 2021, when he said those who don’t comply should be prosecuted by the Justice Department, she said, “I just don’t have anything to add.”

Jean-Pierre criticized the impeachment inquiry overall. She called it a “political stunt” and disputed the notion that the Biden administration hasn’t cooperated with the investigation, citing 100,000 pages of documents that have been provided to investigators and more than 40 hours of interviews with witnesses.

“The White House is stonewalling the House Republicans who have been pushing this impeachment without any evidence? Doing this political stunt?” she said. “There’s no evidence here. There’s none. They’re going to go home tomorrow … what have they done?”

Aside from Hunter Biden, who has this year been indicted on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/09/14/hunter-biden-indictment-gun-charges/" target=_blank>gun charges in Delaware</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/07/hunter-biden-indicted-taxes/" target=_blank>tax charges in California</a>, the majority of people who have been asked to appear before or cooperate with GOP-led committees directing the inquiry have complied to varying degrees.

Current and former officials involved with the ongoing federal investigation into Hunter Biden appeared for closed depositions after a tentative plea deal for him collapsed in August. And David Weiss, the federal prosecutor who was tapped to serve as special counsel investigating the president’s son, took the rare and unusual step of making himself available for questioning by Congress before the investigation was completed.

House GOP investigators have also been given access to suspicious activity reports through the Treasury Department, have obtained bank records through subpoenas and are set to receive 62,000 records from the National Archives from Biden’s time as vice president. Those are in addition to the 20,000 records requested by Comer that the Archives has already made public.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) criticized Hunter Biden for failing to appear Wednesday and instead holding a news conference to complain about the process.

He is “thumbing his nose at the American people,” Issa told reporters waiting outside the hearing room where the president’s son was scheduled to appear.

If Republicans do move to hold Hunter Biden in contempt, the Oversight Committee has to provide 72 hours’ notice before the resolution can make its way through the committee and then onto the House floor. It’s unlikely that a vote would happen this week, unless lawmakers stay in session through the weekend.

Congress held several former Trump administration aides in contempt last year after they defied subpoenas issued by the House Select Committee investigating the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/january-6-capitol-riot/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Jan. 6</a>, 2021, Capitol riot. Jordan was among those subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee, but did not appear for testimony. He was not held in contempt of Congress, but the matter was referred to the House Ethics Committee.

If the House approves a contempt resolution against Hunter Biden, it goes to the Justice Department, which will decide whether to pursue the contempt referral. Contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor criminal offense that can result in up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

Harvard University, BA IN Government

Jacqueline Alemany is a Congressional Investigations reporter for The Washington Post. Previously, she was the author of The Early 202, The Post's flagship early morning newsletter featuring news critical to the nation’s many power centers. Alemany is also an on-air contributor to NBC News and MSNBC.

Jacqueline Alemany

White House Correspondents' Association's Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence in White House Coverage, 2023

Gerald R. Ford Journalism Award for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency, 2021

White House Correspondents' Association's Merriman Smith Award, recognizing presidential news coverage under deadline pressure, 2016

Finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists for national reporting, 2014

Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, 2013, "Broken City" series

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Matt Viser is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. He joined The Post in October 2018, covering the midterms and the 2020 presidential election before moving over to the White House to cover President Biden's administration. He was previously deputy chief of the Washington bureau for the Boston Globe.

Matt Viser

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