2023-09-28 05:49:00
Republicans begin their impeachment investigation against Joe Biden on Thursday due to his son’s controversial affairs abroad, deemed completely unfounded by Democrats.
Conservatives, the majority in the House of Representatives since January, accuse the Democratic leader of having “lied” to the American people about Hunter Biden’s businesses.
This investigation has almost no chance of success, but could turn into a headache for the White House before the 2024 presidential election, for which Joe Biden is a candidate.
“Overwhelming amount of evidence”
The head of the House investigation committee, James Comer, assured that he had found “an overwhelming amount of evidence demonstrating that President Joe Biden abused his public office to financially benefit his family”.
“In view of all these elements, Congress has a duty to open an impeachment investigation into the corruption of President Biden,” he justified in a press release.
The first parliamentary hearing of this investigation is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. (2:00 p.m. GMT).
“Whole nonsense,” says Ian Sams, White House spokesperson, accusing the Republicans of organizing this hearing to divert attention from the budget crisis towards which the country is heading.
No chance of success
The president’s youngest son, a 53-year-old former businessman, has become a prime target of the right.
Elected officials criticize him in particular for having done questionable deals in Ukraine and China while Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice-president (2009-2017), capitalizing on his father’s name and networks.
The U.S. Constitution provides that Congress can impeach the president for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The procedure takes place in two stages.
After carrying out its investigation, the House of Representatives votes, by a simple majority, on articles of indictment detailing the facts alleged against the president: this is what is called “impeachment” in English.
In the event of indictment, the Senate, the upper house of Congress, puts the president on trial. He would then most likely be acquitted, Joe Biden’s party being in the majority in this chamber.
Johnson, Clinton, Trump
The 80-year-old president has always publicly supported his son, with a past riddled with addictions, also struggling with the law, accused of illegal possession of a firearm.
“I wake up every day (…) without focusing on impeachment. I have a job to do. I have to deal with the issues that affect the American people every day,” he said in September .
The opening of impeachment proceedings has been demanded for months by the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party, with which Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy had to make numerous compromises to gain access to the perch in January.
Never has a president been impeached in American history. Three were impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021. But all were ultimately acquitted.
Richard Nixon preferred to resign in 1974 to avoid certain impeachment by Congress due to the Watergate scandal.
28/09/2023 05:48:39 –
Washington (AFP) –
© 2023 AFP
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