US House of Representatives opens impeachment inquiry into Biden

A The United States House of Representatives, controlled by the Republican Party, approved, this Wednesday, the formal opening of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

The vote ended with a final count of 221 votes in favor and 212 against.

The president of the lower house of Congress had justified the Republicans’ decision with the White House’s refusal of their requests for information.

The inquiry aims to analyze whether the US president illegally benefited from family businesses abroad. So far, investigations have not produced any evidence of malpractice on Biden’s part.

“The power to impeach rests solely with the House of Representatives. If the majority of the House now says we are in an official impeachment inquiry as part of our constitutional duty of oversight, that carries weight,” said Jim Jordan, an Ohio congressman and leader of Judicial Committee of the House of Representatives, in statements to journalists.

The investigation had already been opened unilaterally in September by the then president of the House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy, but only now has the Republican opposition given its validation in a plenary session, hoping that this officialization will facilitate their access to information, documents and testimonies. .

“The White House is blocking important testimony”, criticized the chairman of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, James Comer, one of the three congressmen leading this investigation and described it as “important and necessary”.

The current president of the lower house of Congress, Mike Johnson, had justified the Republicans’ decision to proceed with the vote with the White House’s refusal of his requests for more information.

Although in recent months several Republicans have publicly expressed doubts regarding this investigation, the opposition managed to get the investigation approved.

Biden is accused of having used his influence throughout his political career to favor the foreign businesses of his family members, especially his son Hunter Biden

Although the investigation raised ethical concerns, no evidence emerged that Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or in his previous role as vice president.

However, the opposition accuses the Democratic President of having used his influence when he was Vice President of the United States under Barack Obama (2009-2017) to help his son Hunter and other family members in alleged irregular deals with “enemy” countries. , like China.

During the investigation, Mike Johnson said that the three committees that were established concluded that the Biden family received more than 15 million dollars (13.7 million euros) from companies and foreign governments in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania and China between 2014 and 2019. Its partners would have received another nine million dollars (8.27 million euros).

Hunter Biden had been summoned this Wednesday to testify behind closed doors in this regard, but he did not comply with the subpoena, claiming that he wanted his testimony to be public.

By authorizing the inquiry, the Republicans guarantee that the ‘impeachment’ investigation will extend until 2024, when Biden will run for re-election, with a high probability of facing former president Donald Trump again, who was also the target of two impeachment proceedings during his period in the White House.

Trump was among the voices that most pressured the Republican Party to act quickly in relation to Biden’s impeachment.

The Democrats of the House of Representatives today opposed this inquiry, assessing that it is an “extreme political coup, with no credibility, legitimacy or integrity”, as congressman Jim McGovern classified it during a plenary debate.

“These people do not work for Americans, but for Donald Trump”, lamented the Democrat, for whom the ongoing investigation is a continuation of the “crusade” undertaken by Republicans to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential elections.

The United States Constitution states that the President can be removed from office in an impeachment trial if he commits “high crimes or misdemeanors.”

If the investigation yields results, the House of Representatives will have to vote on whether to bring charges against the current President, but the power to remove the country’s head of state subsequently falls to the Senate, where Democrats currently have control, making Biden’s impeachment is unlikely.

[Notícia atualizada às 23h49]

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