The House Judiciary Committee is set to hold the first impeachment inquiry hearing into President Joe Biden's shady foreign business partnership with his son, Hunter, on Capitol Hill Thursday morning.
Ahead of the hearing, the House Committees on Oversight and Accountability, Ways and Means and Judiciary released a lengthy 30-page long memo detailing the scope of the inquiry.
"President Biden was personally involved in his family’s foreign business dealings, and those business arrangements intersected with his official duties. The President had knowledge of many of his family’s business dealings, and indeed participated in them by having phone calls and attending private dinners—including while he was Vice President—with his family’s business associates and foreign business associates who would pay his family millions of dollars for no identifiable product or service," the memo states. "The Biden family and their business associates received over $24 million from foreign sources over the course of approximately five years."
Nearly two dozen shell companies are identified as sources where Biden family money was essentially laundered after being delivered from disturbing foreign sources
🚨 #BREAKING: @GOPoversight, @WaysandMeansGOP, and @JudiciaryGOP release impeachment inquiry scope memo.
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) September 28, 2023
📍 Memo provides overview of impeachment power and explains the purpose of this specific inquiry.
📖 Read it here: https://t.co/M0puKRZCjx
The memo emphasizes the current proceedings are an impeachment inquiry. It explains why the process is relevant to Biden's time as vice president and what gathering information through the inquiry means moving forward.
"Given that impeachment is designed, among other things, to protect the American people from corrupt public officials, it makes sense that the Constitution does not limit impeachable offenses to those an officer committed while serving in his current office. In fact, the Constitution says nothing at all about the timing of impeachable acts. An officer may be impeached for conduct in a former office as well as his current office. Indeed, the House has adopted articles of impeachment based on conduct occurring prior to an officer assuming his current position," the memo states. "As a result, President Biden may be impeached for any impeachable offenses he committed as Vice President in addition to any such offenses he has committed as President. The purpose of this inquiry—and at this stage, it is just that, an inquiry—is to determine whether sufficient grounds exist for the Committees to draft articles of impeachment against President Biden for consideration by the full House. This impeachment inquiry will enable the Committees to gather information necessary to assess whether President Biden has engaged in impeachable conduct."
The Committee emphasizes there is no set timeline for the inquiry and that the facts will be followed to a final conclusion.
"The decision to begin this inquiry does not mean that the Committees have reached a conclusion on this question. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has stated, 'To level the grave accusation that a President may have committed ‘Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ U.S. Const. art. II, § 4, the House must be appropriately informed.' And an impeachment inquiry is the traditional means by which the House assembles and evaluates that information. There is no artificial deadline for concluding this inquiry. 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," the memo states.
President Biden claims he was never "in business" with his son, a change from previous denials he ever spoke to Hunter about any business at all or met any of his business parters.