Biden committed ‘impeachable conduct,’ ‘defrauded United States to enrich his family’: House GOP report
President Biden engaged in “impeachable conduct,” House Republicans found in their months-long impeachment inquiry, declaring in their highly anticipated report that he “abused his office” and “defrauded the United States to enrich his family.”
Fox News Digital obtained a copy of the 292-page report prepared by the House Oversight Committee, House Judiciary Committee and House Ways and Means Committee. Those panels have been leading the impeachment inquiry against Biden.
“The Committees have accumulated evidence demonstrating that President Biden has engaged in impeachable conduct,” the report, which lays out evidence gathered to date, says.
Republicans said there is “overwhelming evidence” that Biden participated in a “conspiracy to monetize his office of public trust to enrich his family.” They alleged that the Biden family and their business associates received tens of millions of dollars from foreign interests by “leading those interests to believe that such payments would provide them access to and influence with President Biden.”
The committees said the Biden family and its associates received more than $27 million from foreign individuals or entities since 2014.
They also alleged that the Biden family leveraged Biden’s position as vice president to obtain more than $8 million in loans from Democrat benefactors. The loans “have not been repaid and the paperwork supporting many of the loans does not exist and has not been produced to the committees.”
The Republicans said the conspiracy took place while Biden was serving as vice president.
“As Vice President, President Biden actively participated in his conspiracy by, among other things, attending dinners with his family’s foreign business partners and speaking to them by phone, often when being placed on speakerphone by Hunter Biden,” the report states.
Sharon Yang, White House spokesperson for Oversight Investigations, responded to the report in a statement, saying, “This failed stunt will only be remembered for how it became an embarrassment that their own members distanced themselves from as they only managed to turn up evidence that refuted their false and baseless conspiracy theories.”
Republicans referenced in the report a 2014 dinner that Biden attended for his son, Hunter, with Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina. After the dinner, Baturina wired $3.5 million to Hunter Biden’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Thornton.
Fox News Digital had previously reported that Biden attended dinners with Hunter Biden’s business associates, including Baturina, in Washington, D.C., at Café Milano in Georgetown in both 2014 and 2015. Biden also met with Jonathan Li of BHR in China in 2013.
Fox News Digital also previously reported that Biden met with the chair of Chinese energy firm CEFC, Ye Jianming, in 2017.
“Based on the totality of evidence, it is inconceivable that President Biden did not understand that he was taking part in an effort to enrich his family by abusing his office of public trust,” the report states.
Republicans also said the Biden family “went to great lengths to conceal this conspiracy.”
“Foreign money was transmitted to the Biden family through complicated financial transactions,” the report states. “The Biden family laundered funds through intermediate entities and broke up large transactions into numerous smaller transactions.”
Republicans said Hunter Biden and his business associates leveraged Joe Biden’s position as vice president to garner “favorable outcomes in foreign business dealings and legal proceedings.”
“Several witnesses testified that Hunter Biden invoked his father in business dealings with Romanian, Chinese, Kazakhstani, and Ukrainian companies, resulting in millions of dollars flowing to the Biden family,” the report states.
“President Biden’s participation in this conspiracy to enrich his family constitutes as impeachable conduct,” they said. “By monetizing the Vice Presidency for his family’s benefit, he abused his office of public trust, placing the welfare of his family ahead of the welfare of the United States.”
Republicans added, “He also put foreign interests ahead of the interests of the American people.”
Meanwhile, Republicans in their report also said Biden used his official position to “conceal his mishandling of classified information as a private citizen.”
“During his tenure as Vice President, Joe Biden removed highly sensitive classified documents from the White House, despite having no authority to do so,” the report states.
Special Counsel Robert Hur investigated Biden’s improper retention of classified records for months but did not recommend charges against the president. The records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, among other records related to national security that implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”
But Hur earlier this year described Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” and said it “would be difficult to convince a jury they should convict him.”
The report also shifts to allegations from IRS whistleblowers, who said federal investigators allowed the statute of limitations to expire on Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes.
“The Justice Department prevented line attorneys from conducting key interviews and pursuing important lines of inquiry,” the report states. “The special treatment for Hunter Biden, which only ceased at the onset of congressional attention on the Department’s investigation, may be a basis for impeachment, as the distortion of an official investigation was a basis in the prospective impeachment of President Nixon in 1974.”
The report adds, “In certain circumstances the President may be impeached for the actions of subordinate officials.”
“The totality of the corrupt conduct uncovered by the Committees is egregious,” the report states. “President Joe Biden conspired to commit influence peddling and grift. In doing so, he abused his office and, by repeatedly lying about his abuse of office, has defrauded the United States to enrich his family.”
Republicans argue that “not one of these transactions would have occurred, but for Joe Biden’s official position in the United States government.”
“This pattern of conduct ensured his family – who provided no legitimate services – lived a lavish lifestyle. The evidence uncovered in the Committees’ impeachment inquiry reflects a family selling the ‘Biden brand’ around the world with President Biden – the ‘big guy’ – swooping in to seal the deal on speaker phones or in private dinners,” the report states. “It shows a concerted effort to conceal President Biden’s involvement in the family’s influence peddling scheme.”
House Republicans pointed to the Constitution, saying the remedy for a president’s “flagrant abuse of office is clear: impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal by the Senate.”
“Despite the cheapening of the impeachment power by Democrats in recent years, the House’s decision to pursue articles of impeachment must not be made lightly,” the report states. “As such, this report endeavors to present the evidence gathered to date so that all Members of the House may assess the extent of President Biden’s corruption.”
House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry report comes weeks after Biden suspended his re-election campaign amid pressure from within the Democratic Party after the first presidential debate in June against former President Trump.
The report stopped short of formally recommending that the House move forward on impeaching the president. Speaker Mike Johnson released a statement commending the report, but he did not lay out plans for bringing the articles of impeachment to the floor.
“House Republicans commend the thorough, diligent, and thoughtful work of the Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees,” Johnson said. “We encourage all Americans to read this report, which details the extent of President Biden’s corrupt practices and the extent to which the Biden-Harris Administration and the Democratic Party have attempted to conceal these facts from the American people.”
Yang’s statement responding to the report continued, “After wasting nearly two years and millions of taxpayer dollars, House Republicans have finally given up on their wild goose chase.”
“The American people deserve more from House Republicans, and perhaps now they will finally join President Biden in focusing on the real issues that American families actually care about.”
House Republicans have been leading the impeachment inquiry since mid-2023. The full House of Representatives formalized the inquiry in December 2023.
In June, House Republicans sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department recommending Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president’s brother, be charged with making false statements to Congress about “key aspects” of the impeachment inquiry.
Hunter Biden was found guilty on federal gun charges in Delaware earlier this year, stemming from charges brought against him by Special Counsel David Weiss. His trial on federal tax charges is set to begin in California in September.
–
Original article source: FOX News
