Washington — President Biden “was never involved” in the business dealings of other members of his family, his brother James Biden testified Wednesday as he appeared for a voluntary private interview on Capitol Hill as part of House Republicans impeachment inquiry.
“I have had a 50-year career in various businesses. Joe Biden has never had any direct or indirect involvement or financial interest in these activities,” the president’s younger brother said in a 10-page opening statement to the legislators obtained. by CBS News. “None.”
The James Biden interview is the latest in a series Republican lawmakers have conducted recently as they seek to restore momentum to an impeachment process surrounding the Biden family’s foreign finances, which has stalled these last months.
Criticism over the lack of evidence directly linked to the president has grown among members of the Republican Party who have thrown cold water on allegations that Mr. Biden was directly involved in alleged efforts by his family members to leverage of the last name to earn salaries in companies domestically and abroad. The GOP investigation was compromised again last week when an FBI informant who claimed there was a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving the president, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company was arrested. undermined. responsible for making history.
The informant’s claims have been at the heart of Republican efforts in Congress to investigate the president and his family, with investigators even mentioning the unsubstantiated claims in letters to potential witnesses. A lawyer for Hunter Biden, who is expected to give a deposition next week, said the accusations show the investigation is “based on dishonest and implausible allegations and witnesses.”
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James and Hunter Biden were subpoenaed by the committee in November. James Biden’s lawyers said there was no justification for the subpoena because the committee had already reviewed private banking records and transactions between the two brothers. The committee found records of two loans made while President Biden was not in office or running for president.
The impeachment inquiry, which began in September under the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, has included recent depositions from several former Biden family associates. In almost every one of these interviews, witnesses said they saw no evidence that President Biden was directly involved in his son’s or brother’s business ventures.
Nonetheless, Republicans, led by Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, said they were pursuing an investigation that could result in impeachment charges against the president, the ultimate sanction for what the Constitution outlines as “serious crimes and misdemeanors”. “.
There have been private discussions about bringing articles of impeachment against Mr. Biden to the House for a vote in February, but those conversations have stalled as support for that effort has waned within the House. majority. House Republicans instead shifted their focus in the new year to holding Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas accountable for his handling of the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. Last week, the very slim majority of the GOP barely managed to impeach Mayorkasreflecting political desperation as Republicans struggle to deliver on the priorities they campaigned on.
The focus is now expected to return to Mr. Biden’s impeachment, as Republicans seek to distract from the various legal challenges plaguing former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner for re-election in November.
House Democrats remained united against the months-long impeachment effort and called on Republicans to end what they call a “sham process.” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said James Biden is the latest example of Republicans playing political games without any sign of hard evidence that could go as far as impeaching a president .
“Clearly, again, we haven’t heard anything indicating that Joe Biden had anything to do with Hunter Biden’s or James Biden’s business ventures, and nothing has contradicted that basic understanding that we’ve had since many, many months now,” Raskin told reporters when the interview broke for lunch.
But Republicans pushed back on the Biden family’s defense, saying evidence collected since early last year paints a troubling picture of “influence peddling” in the family’s business dealings, particularly with international clients. .
“Through my appearance here today, the committees will have the information necessary to conclude that the negative and destructive assumptions about me and my relationship with my brother Joe are false,” James Biden said in his statement. “There is no reason for this investigation to continue.”