House’s inquiry of Biden at crossroad
WASHINGTON — The House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is at a crossroad, lacking the political appetite from within the Republican ranks to go forward with an actual impeachment, but facing political pressure to deliver after months of work.
The chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, Republican Rep. James Comer, pushed ahead at Wednesday's public hearing, claiming that the Democratic president was either “complicit” in his son Hunter Biden's business dealings selling the Biden brand or “incompetent.”
But having produced no hard evidence of presidential wrongdoing by Biden, Comer has signaled an interest in taking the inquiry into another direction. Stopping short of drawing up articles of impeachment, he is instead eyeing potential criminal referrals of the Biden family to the Justice Department, a largely symbolic act.
With Hunter Biden declining to appear at the hearing after having testified privately last month, the Kentucky lawmaker Comer said earlier on Fox News he planned “multiple” criminal referrals.
It's the start of a potential winding down for the lengthy Gop-led probe that was launched after Republicans seized control of the House in January and were eager to hold Biden to the high bar of impeachment. The House, under a Democratic majority, had twice impeached Republican Donald Trump during his presidency.
As Trump and Biden face another likely rematch this November, Comer is weighing whether to keep the impeachment inquiry going through Hunter Biden's often complicated business dealings and troubled personal life or wrap up work even if that falls short of impeachment.
The committee's top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said in his own opening remarks that a “comedy of errors” of the Biden impeachment inquiry is finally “crashing to an end.”
The White House has called the inquiry a “charade” and told Republicans to “move on.”
Hunter Biden, who is facing firearm and tax charges in separate matters, testified behind closed doors last month in a deposition that filled more than 200 pages but left Comer's committee without evidence rising to “high crimes and misdemeanors” that would be expected to impeach a president.