US Republicans launch impeachment inquiry hearings into Joe Biden on Thursday, escalating an eight-month corruption investigation that has failed to uncover evidence of wrongdoing by the president.The Constitution provides that Congress may remove a president for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”One allegation being advanced by Republicans — that Biden was bribed by Ukrainian firm Burisma, where Hunter Biden served on the board — is based on an anonymous tip that Trump’s Justice Department investigated and dropped.
A related theory — debunked by multiple federal officials — involves false allegations that, as vice president, Biden got a Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired to benefit Burisma.
In fact, it was US and European Union policy that Shokin was hampering efforts to combat corruption in the ex-Soviet nation and needed to go.
Republicans have also presented a former business partner of Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, as a star witness who would offer damning evidence that the president made money from his son’s contacts.
Pressed repeatedly, he testified that he had never seen or heard the younger Biden discuss business with his father.
Republicans seized on Archer’s testimony that the president had greeted his son’s associates during numerous family telephone calls, claiming Biden had helped his son create the impression that his contacts had access to the White House.
But they have presented no evidence of influence-peddling by Biden himself.
Republicans also claim Biden interfered with a criminal investigation into various allegations against Hunter but, again, the claim looks thin since the president’s son was indicted on gun charges by a Trump-appointed prosecutor that newly elected Biden allowed to complete his investigation.