House Republicans launched their formal impeachment hearing against the president on Thursday

Joe

Biden, saying they plan to be accountable as they make their case to the public, their colleagues and skeptics in the Senate.

The chairmen of the Oversight, Judiciary and Ways and Means committees are using the first hearing of their impeachment inquiry to assess the constitutional and legal issues involved. They are trying to prove what they say are ties to his son Hunter’s foreign companies, although key witnesses said they have yet to see hard evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

Representative James Comer

,

(R-Ky.), the Oversight chairman, said the Legislature has a mountain of evidence that will show the elder Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain.

Comer said the panel will continue to monitor the money and evidence to ensure accountability to the American people.

It’s a high-stakes opening for Republicans, who find themselves in the midst of a possible federal government shutdown as they begin a process that could lead to the ultimate punishment for a president, punishment for what the Constitution describes as high crimes and crimes.

The hearing comes as Republicans in the House of Representatives face widespread opposition to the investigation from their own ranks and deep opposition in the Senate from Republicans concerned about the political fallout of impeachment and who say the conviction and Biden’s resignation would be virtually impossible.

As the hearing began, Democrats displayed a screen showing the days, hours and minutes remaining until the government shuts down as Congress struggles to fund the government before Saturday’s deadline.

We are 62 hours away from shutting down the government of the United States of America and Republicans are launching impeachment proceedings based on a long-debunked and discredited lie, said

Maryland

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel.

Raskin questioned the legitimacy of the hearing since the House has not voted to formally launch the impeachment inquiry. He said Republicans are repeating five-year-old allegations by Donald Trump, Biden’s main rival in 2024, that first emerged during the former president’s first impeachment in 2019.

They don’t have a shred of evidence against President Biden of an impeachable crime, he said.

No witnesses with information about the business dealings of the Bidens or Hunter Biden were present at Thursday’s hearing. Instead, the panel heard from outside experts in tax law, criminal investigations and constitutional legal theory.

A leading Republican witness, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and an expert on impeachment issues, said he believed the House of Representatives had crossed the threshold for an investigation but that the current evidence was not sufficient for charges .

I do not believe the current evidence would support articles of impeachment, Turley said.

Democrats, who decry the investigation as a political ploy aimed at hurting Biden and helping Trump as he runs for president again, brought in Michael Gerhardt, a law professor who has also appeared as an expert in previous impeachment proceedings.

In laying out the reasons why Republicans say they should impeach Biden, Gerhardt concluded: If that is what exists, it is not sufficient as a basis for this investigation. I say that with all due respect.

Gerhardt said: A fishing expedition is not a legitimate goal.

Still, questions remain as Republicans dig into the Biden family’s finances and Hunter Biden, who has admitted to being a drug user for much of the time he was under scrutiny.

Republicans have been investigating Hunter Biden for years, since his father was vice president. And while questions have been raised about the ethics surrounding the families’ international activities, there is no evidence yet

turned out to be proven

that the president, in his current or previous office, abused his role, accepted bribes, or both.

A former business associate of Hunter Biden has told House investigators that the son sold the illusion of access to his father.

Turley told lawmakers the question remains: Was the president involved?

Ahead of the hearing, Republicans unveiled a series of new documents and bank records detailing wire transfers from a Chinese businessman to Hunter Biden in 2019. Hunter Biden had included his father’s address on the wire transfer form, which Republicans said was provided. a clear link to the president.

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, said the address on the wire transfer, which he says was a loan, was at the president’s home in Delaware because it was the address on Hunter Biden’s driver’s license and “his only permanent address at that time’. .

Once again, Rep. Comer is spreading lies in support of a suspicion of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden or his family that evaporates into thin air once the facts come to light, Lowell said in a statement.

Republicans in the House of Representatives are also investigating the Justice Department’s investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes and gun use that began in 2018. Two IRS whistleblowers came to Congress in the spring with claims that department officials thwarted their efforts to fully investigate Hunter Biden and that they faced retaliation. when they pushed back.

Biden’s Justice Department is protecting the Biden family brand

,.

said Rep. Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican and chairman of Ways and Means.

The claims have since been disputed by the Justice Department, the IRS and FBI agents who worked on the case.

What Smith did not mention was that the discussions took place during Trump’s Justice Department and were likely consistent with the agency’s practice of avoiding overt investigative steps involving political candidates in the immediate run-up to an election.

But Republicans have pointed to a failed summer settlement as evidence that Hunter Biden received preferential treatment because of who his father was.

“They were trying to put together this sweetheart deal,” said Rep. Jim Jordan

,

(R-Ohio), the chairman of the Judiciary.

The impeachment hearing comes as the federal government is days away from what is likely to be a damaging government shutdown that would freeze paychecks for millions of federal workers and the military and disrupt services for millions of Americans.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy

(R-Bakersfield)

announced the impeachment inquiry this month, egged on by Trump and with mounting pressure from his right flank to take action against Biden or risk being ousted from his leadership job.

Trump is the only president to be impeached twice, first over allegations that he pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt

yo

Biden and later over allegations that he incited the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. In both cases he was acquitted by the Senate.

Thursday’s hearing is expected to be the first of many as Republicans in the House of Representatives investigate how this investigation will end and whether

or not

they will pursue articles of impeachment against the president.

It is unclear whether McCarthy will have the support of his slim Republican majority to impeach Biden as rank-and-file lawmakers have expressed reservations about the investigation. If Biden were impeached, the charges would then be sent to the Senate for trial.