2023- Congress-Biden Impeachment Thread

(The Guardian) Republicans release resolution to hold Hunter Biden in contempt for not attending deposition
The Republican-led House oversight committee has released its resolution holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for not attending a behind-closed-doors deposition in December.

Despite receiving a subpoena, the president’s son demanded that any questioning by Congress be done in public, and instead made a brief statement to reporters outside the Capitol on the day the deposition was to occur. Hunter Biden is facing several federal charges related to lying in order to purchase a gun and failing to pay taxes. But Republicans have for years alleged he is at the center of a plot where his father Joe Biden benefited from corrupt business dealings overseas, even though they have turned up no proof of their allegations.

In a report accompanying the resolution, the committee makes clear they planned to use whatever was learned from questioning Hunter Biden as part of their ongoing impeachment inquiry into the president.

“Mr. Biden’s testimony is a critical component of the impeachment inquiry into, among other things, whether Joseph R. Biden, Jr., as Vice President and/or President: (1) took any official action or effected any change in government policy because of money or other things of value provided to himself or his family; (2) abused 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; or (3) abused 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,” the report reads.

“Mr. Biden’s flagrant defiance of the Committees’ deposition subpoenas—while choosing to appear nearby on the Capitol grounds to read a prepared statement on the same matters—is contemptuous, and he must be held accountable for his unlawful actions.”

The oversight and judiciary committees will consider the contempt resolution on Wednesday.

(The Guardian) Homeland security chief Mayorkas decries 'false accusations' as Republicans kick off impeachment bid
House Republicans are finally following through on their much-discussed push to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, who they blame for mishandling security on the southern border. Beginning at 10am ET, the House homeland security committee will consider two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, and, assuming they approve them, a vote by the full House of Representatives could come next week.

This is unlikely to be a process that results in Mayorkas losing his job. Impeachments of cabinet secretaries are rare, and even if the House approves the charges, the Democratic-controlled Senate has shown no interest in pursuing his conviction. In a seven-page letter to the committee’s Republican chair, Mark Green, released today, Mayorkas defended his handling of the surge in migrants arriving from Mexico, and told Green that his “false accusations do not rattle me”. Meanwhile, we are still waiting for the details of a legislative compromise to tighten immigration policy in a way that would reduce the number of migrants entering the country, which Republicans say they want passed in exchange for their votes for aid to Ukraine and Israel, though it’s unclear if even that will be enough.

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Mayorkas not the only target of House impeachment campaign
It’s not just the homeland security chief Alejandro Mayorkas that House Republicans are going after.

The party is also considering impeaching Joe Biden for alleged corruption, but that effort appears to be on the backburner at the moment, perhaps because lawmakers have not turned up any proof of their allegations. Last month, Republicans held a vote on the House floor to authorize the investigation, months after a disastrous hearing in which their own witnesses said they did not know if the president broke the law. It’s unclear when the House GOP’s next move will occur.

Both the Biden and Mayorkas impeachments suffer from the same problem: uncertainty over whether the GOP has the votes in the House to impeach both men. Regardless, any impeachment article sent to the Senate are expected to quickly be rejected by the chamber’s Democratic majority, which has shown no sign of wanting to convict their own president, or his deputies.

(The Guardian) James Biden will appear before House Republicans for a private interview next month as lawmakers seek to regain some momentum in their monthslong impeachment inquiry into his brother, Joe Biden, The Associated Press reports.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee announced on Wednesday that the Democratic president’s younger sibling will come to Capitol Hill on February 21. The date was set after months of negotiations between the sides. -- We look forward to his interview,” the committee posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.

James Biden’s interview will take place just days before the president’s son Hunter Biden will be deposed in private by the Republican-run committee, which has been investigating the Biden family’s overseas finances for the past year.

Both James and Hunter Biden were subpoenaed by the committee in November. So far, the GOP investigation has failed to uncover evidence directly implicating the president in any wrongdoing.

A lawyer for James Biden said at the time that there was no justification for the subpoena because the committee had already reviewed private bank records and transactions between the two brothers. The committee found records of two loans that were made when Joe Biden was not in office or a candidate for president. -- There is nothing more to those transactions, and there is nothing wrong with them. And Jim Biden has never involved his brother in his business dealings,” lawyer Paul Fishman said in a statement in November.

(The Guardian) The House GOP’s impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden has moved forward at the same time that a justice department special counsel brought charges against the president’s son for allegedly evading taxes and lying while buying a gun. But as the Guardian’s Edward Helmore reports, lawyers for Hunter Biden argue evidence in his case has been misinterpreted by prosecutors: Lawyers for Hunter Biden have claimed that a picture government prosecutors are using to support a tax fraud case against him shows neatly arranged lines of sawdust from a carpentry shop – and not cocaine as the government contends.

Joe Biden’s son is facing tax evasion charges for failing to disclose millions in foreign income and a charge for failing to disclose he was a drug addict on gun licensing forms. He claims that use of the picture shows that prosecutors’ evidence against him should not be taken at face value.

The potential mix-up “sounds more like a storyline from one of the 1980’s Police Academy comedies than what should be expected in a high-profile prosecution”, Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell wrote in a court filing.

Lowell said that the government was “flat-out wrong” to claim that Biden took the photograph or that it showed cocaine. Instead, Lowell said, “this is actually a photo of sawdust from an expert carpenter and it was sent to Mr Biden, not vice versa”. The photo was from a master carpenter and “coke addict” that Biden’s psychiatrist had sent to his patient to “convey that Mr Biden, too, could overcome any addiction”.

(The Guardian) Hunter Biden says father was 'never' involved in businesses, attacks 'partisan political pursuit of my dad' - report
In his opening statement to the House oversight and judiciary committees, Hunter Biden said his father has “never” been involved in any of his business ventures, and decried the GOP’s campaign to impeach Joe Biden over unproven claims of corruption. “I am here today to provide the Committees with the one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business. Not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist. Never,” Hunter Biden said in the statement obtained by Punchbowl News.

He then went on to attack the GOP for its pursuit of his father: For more than a year, your Committees have hunted me in your partisan political pursuit of my dad. You have trafficked in innuendo, distortion, and sensationalism – all the while ignoring the clear and convincing evidence staring you in the face. You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father because there isn’t any.

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Hunter Biden took particular umbrage at the GOP’s reliance on discredited sources to attack him and his father.

The weaknesses of some of the evidence Republicans have used to claim corruption on his part and Joe Biden’s became apparent earlier this month when Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, was indicted for lying to the government, and prosecutors later revealed that information he had provided about Hunter Biden came from Russian intelligence.

Here’s what Biden told the oversight and judiciary committees about that: You have built your entire partisan house of cards on lies told by the likes of Gal Luft, Tony Bobulinski, Alexander Smirnov and Jason Galanis. Luft, who is a fugitive, has been indicted for his lies and other crimes; Smirnov, who has made you dupes in carrying out a Russian disinformation campaign waged against my father, has been indicted for his lies; Bobulinski, who has been exposed for the many false statements he has made, and Galanis, who is serving 14 years in prison for fraud. Rather than follow the facts as they have been laid out before you in bank records, financial statements, correspondence and other witness testimony, you continue your frantic search to prove the lies you, and those you rely on, keep peddling. Yes, they are lies.