Democrats planned to impeach Trump the moment he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016. Sure enough, once they got a majority in the House, they went right to work and ended up impeaching him twice on incredibly weak charges, effectively weaponizing impeachment and turning it into a political cudgel.
Today, Republicans have uncovered a trove of evidence, backed up by financial records and witness testimony, that Joe Biden was a central player in Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling schemes, which earned the Biden family millions of dollars from foreign sources while the elder Biden was vice president.
So when will Joe Biden be impeached? Well, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is cautioning against it, but House Speaker McCarthy seems as willing as ever to go through with it and appears to be putting the onus on Joe Biden to prove he never received any of the millions that Hunter Biden received from foreign sources.
On Monday night, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called on Biden to “give us his bank statements” to prove he didn’t benefit from Hunter’s foreign business dealings.
“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,” McCarthy told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday night.
There is little reason to believe that Joe Biden would turn over his bank records. Aside from the plethora of evidence that Joe Biden was directly involved in the influence-peddling schemes and that he was “the big guy” who was getting a cut of anywhere between 10 and 50% of Hunter’s deals, it is unlikely that Biden would give up incriminating information. The White House would also certainly claim that the Bidens aren’t about to legitimize the Oversight Committee’s efforts by giving them what they ask for.
A potential impeachment inquiry could take place as soon as October.
McCarthy has long been hesitant to embrace impeaching Joe Biden but started showing signs he was warming up to it last month.
“When President Biden was running for office, he told the American public that he’s never talked about business. He said his family has never received a dollar from China, which we now prove is not true. We now have some of the most credible whistleblowers, these 10-year IRS agents who have come forward, said that the Biden family has been treated differently,” McCarthy said last month.
“We’ve only followed where the information has taken us,” McCarthy continued. “This is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed. Because this president has also used something we have not seen since Richard Nixon, used the weaponization of government to benefit his family and deny Congress the ability to have the oversight.”
I remain skeptical that McCarthy will push ahead with impeachment. Publicly, he’s expressing openness to it based on the evidence, which so far is quite damning, but with such a slim majority in the House, convincing moderate Republicans to impeach Biden will require an airtight case. But putting the onus on Biden to prove he never saw a dime of foreign money suggests that he’s serious. More witnesses are expected to be called in the ongoing investigation, and the committee could eventually subpoena Biden’s banking records.
Will Republicans go through with it?