WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that Republicans would open an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden next month if he doesn’t hand over personal records.
McCarthy said Republicans need “the bank statements, the credit card statements” that would show whether Biden had taken a bribe.
“Show us where the money went. Show us: Were you taking money from outside sources? That would clear most of this up,” McCarthy said on Fox Business. “The whole determination here is how the Bidens handle this. If they provide us the documents, there wouldn’t be a need for an impeachment inquiry.”
Republicans have not previously said they asked the Biden administration or the Biden family for bank statements, but House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said earlier this month that he intended to do so.
“This is always going to end with the Bidens coming in front of the committee,” Comer said.
So far, Republicans have subpoenaed records from banks confirming that limited liability companies affiliated with Hunter Biden, the president’s son, had received millions of dollars from foreign nationals in Ukraine and China. Those records, reflecting business relationships that have been public knowledge for years, have not revealed a link to the president.
By framing the impeachment question as a battle over documents rather than bribery and corruption, McCarthy may be trying to sidestep the fact that the main Republican allegation against President Biden ― that he took a Ukrainian bribe when he was vice president ― remains completely unfounded.
As vice president, Biden was the face of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, and in 2015 he urged the firing of a top Ukrainian prosecutor as part of a broader anti-corruption initiative. Republicans have claimed that Biden was acting in his family’s self-interest because the prosecutor was investigating an energy company called Burisma that paid Hunter Biden millions.
While the younger Biden’s relationship looked like a conflict of interest, top State Department officials testified in 2019 that firing the prosecutor had been their policy goal, not Joe Biden’s, and that the prosecutor was corrupt.
Republicans have decided to ignore that testimony.
“We’ve now learned that Hunter Biden was being pressured while he was on that oil and gas company Burisma about getting rid of that prosecutor,” McCarthy said Tuesday, mischaracterizing recent testimony from Hunter Biden’s former business.
McCarthy wrapped the Ukraine allegation into a broader gripe that the Justice Department has been persecuting former President Donald Trump while coddling Hunter Biden, who has been under investigation for years for failing to pay taxes on his foreign income.
David Weiss, the Delaware-based federal prosecutor investigating the younger Biden, announced earlier this month that a tentative plea deal had fallen apart and that he would seek to bring the case to trial. Attorney General Merrick Garland granted Weiss special counsel status so he could pursue charges outside of Delaware.
Citing testimony from an IRS criminal investigator who claimed the Justice Department slow-walked the Biden investigation, Republicans have claimed that everything Weiss is doing shows political favoritism toward the Bidens, even though he’s threatening to throw the president’s son in prison.
“Why is this special treatment here, and why can’t we get the documents to prove that you’re not being bribed, that you didn’t get foreign money directly and that you didn’t talk to your son,” McCarthy said.