The impeachment inquiry into President Biden will focus on answering four key questions related to the commander in chief’s alleged involvement in his family’s extensive foreign business dealings, a memo released by the Republican leaders of the three House committees tasked with leading the probe revealed Wednesday.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) explained the purpose of the inquiry, summarized the evidence justifying it and outlined the scope of their investigation in the detailed, 20-page missive to members of their respective panels.
The inquiry into the 80-year-old president will seek to determine the following:
- “First, did Joe Biden, as Vice President and/or President, take any official action or effect any change in government policy because of money or other things of value provided to his family or him from foreign interests?”
- “Second, did Joe Biden, as Vice President and/or President, abuse his office of public trust by providing foreign interests with access to him and his office in exchange for payments to his family or him?”
- “Third, did Joe Biden, as Vice President and/or President, abuse his office of public trust by knowingly participating in a scheme to enrich himself or his family by giving foreign interests the impression that they would receive access to him and his office in exchange for payments to his family or him?”
- “Fourth, did Joe Biden abuse his power as President to impede, obstruct, or otherwise hinder investigations (including Congressional investigations) or the prosecution of Hunter Biden?”
The congressional leaders caution that the probe “will go where that evidence leads” and that over the course of the investigation it may go in a direction that the committees “do not currently foresee.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy directed the House committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden on Sept. 12, citing “serious and credible allegations” of corruption found during congressional investigations into the president’s involvement in his family’s apparent overseas influence peddling operation.
“There is no artificial deadline for concluding this inquiry,” the memo notes. “The Committees will follow the facts and will take the necessary time to determine whether articles of impeachment should be drafted and referred to the full House for consideration.”
So far, the three House committees have uncovered evidence that the Biden family and their business associates have raked in over $24 million from foreign sources between 2014 and 2019, according to the memo, from foreign companies and foreign nationals in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania, and China.
“This money was transmitted to Biden family members from foreign sources through an exceedingly complex chain of transactions that made it difficult to track the flow of these funds,” the committee leaders write, accusing the president of being “personally involved” in his family’s foreign business dealings while he served as vice president, not being “truthful about his family’s foreign business entanglements” and attempting to obstruct the Justice Department’s investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes.
“Necessarily, the impeachment inquiry will span the time of Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency to the present, including his time out of office,” the memo reads. “The impeachment inquiry will focus on whether the President has engaged in corruption, bribery, and influence peddling during his time as Vice President and President. The impeachment inquiry will simultaneously investigate whether actions have been taken by the Biden Administration to obstruct or hinder accountability for the same potential corruption, bribery, and influence peddling.”
The committee leaders also say that they will seek to access not only bank records and documents related to the president, but also those of “people and entities in his proximity throughout the relevant time period, including those of his family members and Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris Administration officials.”
“Committees will use all of the tools at their disposal to conduct a thorough and needed investigation and fulfill the constitutional responsibility of determining whether articles of impeachment against President Biden should be drafted and referred to the full House.”
