U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) is calling on House Republican leaders to initiate a chamber-wide vote on impeaching President Biden following the release of a critical report accusing the president of multiple impeachable offenses. On Monday, the House Oversight Committee issued a final report alleging that President Biden engaged in “impeachable offenses” by benefiting from and participating in his family’s influence-peddling schemes. A summary of the report, shared on X, asserts that Biden was aware of and involved in these activities.
The committee has described the report as the “strongest case for impeachment of a sitting president the House of Representatives has ever investigated.” It added: “Our report details evidence to establish President Biden abused his office and violated his oaths of office as Vice President by engaging in a conspiracy to peddle influence to enrich his family. Then as President, Joe Biden and the Biden-Harris Administration obstructed the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry and the criminal investigation of President Biden’s son.”
In a video statement released Tuesday, Donalds called on House Republican leaders to bring the Biden impeachment matter to the floor. “I’ve felt that way for a long time. I’m on the Oversight Committee, I’ve seen all of the evidence up close and personal. It is without a doubt that he used his office when he was vice president to enrich his family as pay-for-play,” Donalds told Fox News. “That’s public corruption.”
The Florida congressman highlighted the low-bar precedent set by the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump, who was accused of threatening to withhold congressionally-approved aid to Ukraine. Donalds noted that all House Democrats voted for Trump’s impeachment based on hearsay from a whistleblower, who is now running for Congress as a Democrat. “Listen, if a phone call is quote-unquote an impeachable offense, then public corruption absolutely is. I think the House should hold that vote,” Donalds said.
The 292-page report, produced with the House Judiciary Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, summarizes the House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Biden, which recently stalled following his announcement that he would not seek a second term. Led by Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY), GOP lawmakers have aimed to portray Biden as the influential patriarch of a family network engaged in business dealings in China, Russia, and other authoritarian regimes, leveraging his vice-presidential influence.
In their investigation, lawmakers discovered that Hunter Biden frequently urged Obama administration officials to meet with his clients and sought their assistance in blocking an investigation by a Ukrainian prosecutor into Burisma Holdings, the energy company where he served on the board. The committees state that all told, the president’s family collected more than $27 million from deals during that timeframe. That figure does not include $8 million in loans the family collected from party benefactors, loans which “have not been repaid and the paperwork supporting many of the loans does not exist and has not been produced to the committees.”
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