In a chaotic session, Republicans accused the president of crime and corruption, but even their witnesses said the case for impeachment hadn’t been made.
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Representative Jamie Raskin, left, and Representative James Comer at the start of the first hearing of the impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
The first hearing in House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Biden featured their star witnesses testifying that they lacked proof that he committed impeachable offenses, multiple procedural skirmishes the G.O.P. majority nearly lost and, at times, nearly a dozen empty Republican seats.
What it did not include was any new information about Mr. Biden’s conduct — or any support for Republicans’ accusations that he had entered into corrupt overseas business deals.
“If the Republicans had a smoking gun or even a dripping water pistol, they would be presenting it today,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee. “But they’ve got nothing on Joe Biden.”
Top House Republicans are eyeing potential impeachment charges of bribery and abuse of power against Mr. Biden, and they have released more than 700 pages from the confidential tax investigation into his son Hunter Biden. But the G.O.P. has struggled so far to link Hunter Biden’s business activity to his father. Despite their review of more than 12,000 pages of bank records and 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports, none of the material released so far shows any payment to the president.
Even some witnesses House Republicans handpicked to testify on Thursday conceded that lawmakers had not accumulated the evidence needed to warrant an impeachment charge.
ImageFrom left, Jonathan Turley, Eileen O’Connor, Bruce Dobinsky and Michael Gerhardt being sworn in for the hearing on Thursday.Credit…Kent Nishimura for The New York Times
“I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud or any wrongdoing,” said Bruce G. Dubinsky, a forensic accountant. “In my opinion, more information needs to be gathered and assessed before I would make such an assessment.”
Likewise, Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University’s law school, told the panel that while he considered an inquiry warranted, “I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. That is something that an inquiry has to establish.”
The witnesses’ tone stood in stark contrast to that set by the committee’s Republicans, who for months have leveled accusations against what they called the “Biden crime family.”
In his opening statement, Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Oversight Committee, promised to bring forward more than two dozen pieces of evidence that would reveal “Joe Biden’s corruption and abuse of public office.”
Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, accused Mr. Biden of engaging in “pay-to-play schemes” and “shady foreign business deals.”
In a video promoting the hearing, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, called Mr. Biden “the most corrupt president in the history of the United States.”
But even as the hearing was underway, some Republicans privately fretted that Mr. Comer did not appear in control of the proceedings and had undercut his own narrative by calling witnesses who did not fully support it. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly criticizing colleagues, one senior House Republican aide called the session disastrous.
Instead of a deep dive into alleged wrongdoing by a president, the hourslong hearing mostly devolved into a partisan brawl.
Shortly after the session was gaveled in, Democrats moved to disrupt the Republican narrative.
Mr. Raskin and Representative Kweisi Mfume, also a Maryland Democrat, tried to force the committee to issue subpoenas to Rudolph W. Giuliani, former President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, and his associate Lev Parnas.
Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Parnas tried to investigate Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings for years without success. Mr. Parnas has now renounced the effort, writing to the committee, “There has never been any factual evidence, only conspiracy theories.”
But Republicans voted to block the subpoenas — though not before nearly losing the vote because there were initially not enough of them present in the hearing room to defeat it.
At one point, Mr. Mfume held up a sign that said, “Where is Rudy?”
The hearing occurred on an extraordinarily busy day in Congress as internal dysfunction among House Republicans threatened to cause a government shutdown by the weekend. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi had a countdown clock next to him during his questioning showing the time ticking down before the midnight Saturday deadline to keep funding flowing.
Democrats also engaged in some mocking of the investigation.
Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, had his staff drop off a case of Bud Light for the Republicans, sarcastically congratulating them “as they embark on their historic impeachment journey.”
And the White House blasted out emails every hour arguing that Republicans were trying to distract the public as Congress lurches toward a government shutdown.
“The consequences for the American people will be very damaging — from lost jobs, to troops working without pay, to jeopardizing important efforts to fight fentanyl, deliver disaster relief, provide food assistance and more,” a White House spokeswoman, Sharon Yang, wrote. “Nothing can distract from that.”
Luke Broadwater covers Congress. He was the lead reporter on a series of investigative articles at The Baltimore Sun that won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award in 2020. More about Luke Broadwater
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Source: nytimes.com
