Republicans Haul In President’s Brother For Impeachment Questioning

WASHINGTON ― President Joe Biden’s brother arrived on Capitol Hill for an interview with lawmakers on Wednesday as a part of the Republican impeachment inquiry in opposition to the president.

James Biden labored with the president’s son, Hunter Biden, on enterprise offers that Republicans have described as corrupt “influence peddling” implicating the president.

The president’s brother informed lawmakers, nevertheless, that Joe Biden wasn’t concerned in any respect.

“I have had a 50-year career in a variety of business ventures,” James Biden mentioned in a gap assertion. “Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest in those activities. None.”

Most different witnesses have equally denied that Joe Biden had any function in his household’s personal sector work. And a key allegation collapsed final week after the Justice Department introduced an FBI informant had been indicted for mendacity concerning the president accepting bribes. Prosecutors mentioned in a court docket submitting Tuesday that the informant, a U.S. citizen named Alexander Smirnov, claimed to have been involved with Russian intelligence companies.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the highest Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which has led the inquiry, mentioned that he hoped Republicans would merely name off the impeachment inquiry altogether.

“The whole impeachment inquiry has been built on the foundation of lies and conspiracy theories, propaganda and disinformation promoted by Russian intelligence agents,” Raskin mentioned.

The core allegation in opposition to Joe Biden has been that, as vice chairman, he twisted U.S. overseas coverage, urging the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor with a purpose to profit a Ukrainian gasoline firm that employed his son. State Department officers have repeatedly mentioned firing the prosecutor was U.S. coverage. Smirnov’s now-discredited allegation that Joe and Hunter Biden accepted bribes from the corporate’s founder fashioned a significant a part of the inquiry.

Republicans have additionally examined Biden household enterprise offers with different overseas nationals, together with in Romania and China. James Biden was a part of a Hunter Biden-led group that partnered with an affiliate of a Chinese power conglomerate searching for funding alternatives within the U.S.

Like a number of different impeachment witnesses, James Biden beforehand spoke to federal investigators about his work with Hunter Biden, who faces federal prices for not paying his taxes on time and for illegally proudly owning a firearm. The youthful Biden wrote in his 2021 memoir that his pursuit of massive paydays stemmed partially from his habit to crack cocaine.

During an interview with investigators from the Justice Department and the IRS in 2022 that Republicans obtained and made public final 12 months as a part of the impeachment effort, James Biden mentioned Hunter Biden’s psychological state deteriorated within the years following his brother Beau Biden’s dying in 2015. He mentioned he discovered Hunter Biden holed up in a California motel room in 2018.

″[Robert Hunter Biden] wouldn’t let James B into the room, so James B sat in opposition to the door ready for RHB for two days,” the IRS interview memorandum acknowledged. “James B convinced the hotel manager to let him in and they found RHB in the room with another drug addict.”

Hunter Biden has been sober since 2019, when he launched a profession as an artist that Republicans have additionally probed for corruption. He will testify earlier than lawmakers subsequent week.

Republicans have pointed to mortgage repayments from James and Hunter Biden to Joe Biden in 2017 and 2018 that they declare wouldn’t have been doable in the event that they hadn’t made cash off their final title within the first place.

“I think there’s an enormous amount of circumstantial evidence that shows that Hunter and Jim are selling the brand, and Joe Biden was profiting from it financially,” Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) informed reporters. “So we’re going to find out that’s true.”

Timmons added that the Justice Department’s prices in opposition to its former informant solely made him extra “suspicious” of the division.

In his opening assertion, James Biden mentioned he had nothing to cover.

“With my appearance here today, the committees will have the information to conclude that the negative and destructive assumptions about me and my relationship with my brother Joe are wrong,” he mentioned mentioned. “There is no basis for this inquiry to continue.”