Republicans in Congress stepped up their investigation into US President Joe Biden’s impeachment on Wednesday, ordering subpoenas for testimony from his son Hunter and brother James.
The attempt to compel the couple to testify came from the House Oversight Committee, where the Republican majority has spent months attempting to establish the president committed malfeasance in order to impeach him.
The committee has already combed through bank records and interrogated colleagues of Hunter Biden, the president’s troublesome son, who is accused of engaging in a fraudulent influence-peddling plot with his father while serving as Barack Obama’s vice president.
The subpoenas for Biden family members to testify come one year before the 2024 election, in which Biden is expected to run for a second term against hard-right former President Donald Trump.
“The House Oversight Committee has followed the money and built a record of evidence revealing how Joe Biden knew, was involved, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes,” committee chairman James Comer said in a statement.
“Now, the House Oversight Committee is going to bring in members of the Biden family and their associates to question them on this record of evidence.”
While Republicans have yet to provide credible evidence of the president’s misconduct, there is a strong movement within the party for impeachment. If the House does impeach Biden, the Democratic-controlled Senate will almost definitely not convict him.
The endeavor, according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, is a “baseless smear campaign against the president and his family.”
“This is an investigation that has been going on for a year now and has turned up zero evidence of wrongdoing by the president because there isn’t. But Republicans continue to double down,” she said.