© AFP via Getty ImagesThe House voted Wednesday to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
The vote broke down along party lines, with 221 Republicans in favor of the inquiry and 212 Democrats against.
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) was the only member absent.
President Biden denounced House Republicans following the vote, saying they were "choosing to waste time on this baseless political stunt."
"Instead of doing anything to make Americans' lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies," Biden, 81, said. "Instead of doing their job on the urgent work that needs to be done, they are choosing to waste time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) disagreed and said his conference did "not take this responsibility lightly and will not prejudge the investigation's outcome."
"As President Biden continues to stonewall lawful Congressional subpoenas, today's vote of the full House of Representatives authorizing the inquiry puts us in the strongest position to enforce these subpoenas in court," Johnson said in a statement.
The House voted Wednesday to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Pictured here speaking at a meeting of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, in the Indian Treaty Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on December 13, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told The Post ahead of the vote that the White House forced Republicans' hand after "blocking witnesses from testifying" and "withholding thousands of documents," including emails Biden traded with his son Hunter Biden and his son's business partners while he was vice president, which are held at the National Archives.
The White House told Republicans that it was "not going to acknowledge or ... recognize these subpoenas as valid without a full vote of the House," Emmer said. "[Speaker] Mike Johnson, when faced with that said, 'All right, well, we're gonna have to go to court to get these enforced anyway, might as well eliminate any objection that they have before we get there."
"For the president who says he's the most transparent president in the history of this country, he's set a poor example — and he sure is stonewalling," added Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC).
© House TVA Biden impeachment inquiry was authorized by House Republicans.
"For six years, I've been the target of the unrelenting Trump attack machine shouting, 'Where's Hunter?' Well, here's my answer, 'I am here,'" Hunter, 53, told a crowd of reporters.
"Let me state as clearly as I can: my father was not financially involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma, not in my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist," he said before leaving without taking questions.
© Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/ShutterstockHouse Majority Whip Tom Emmer
"Hunter Biden today tried to tell everybody two things are happening," Emmer said. "One, that what you see is not what really happened with my father. And the second one was, 'Oh, by the way, I'm doing it again. Because my last name is Biden, I don't need to honor ... valid subpoenas from a House committee that is looking into criminal business dealings and other activities.'"
On Sept. 12, House Republicans initiated their impeachment inquiry without a vote of the full House, pointing to evidence from bank records, transcribed interviews with Hunter's former business associates as well as documents and testimony from IRS whistleblowers that Joe Biden was aware of his son's shady business dealings with foreign entities — and that his administration interfered during a five-year probe into them.
There's evidence that the then-vice president met with associates of Hunter and his uncle James Biden from China, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia — directly contradicting statements Biden made during his 2020 presidential campaign and while in office.
Republicans also are looking into Hunter earning more than $1 million working for a corrupt Romanian businessman as his vice-president dad campaigned against corruption in that country.
Some of those associates have since faced criminal charges, including CEFC China Energy chairman Ye Jianming, who has been detained on bribery allegations in his home country since 2018.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has revealed payments and checks that Joe Biden received from Hunter and first brother James — which the first family's allies have insisted are mere loan repayments.
Following the vote, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), a member of the Judiciary Committee that's part of the investigation, said that Republicans need to focus on publicizing key findings while gathering additional evidence.
"What we need to do is show the American people what has happened and share the information with them," he said, "because I still think most of the American people don't understand many of the details of this and how the Biden family got money and that there's actually checks that have been written to Joe Biden."
House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) has also cited the Justice Department's alleged interference with IRS investigators who sought to determine the president's role in overseas dealings after the two whistleblowers sat for transcribed interviews and produced records from their case.
Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), the author of the resolution formalizing the inquiry, accused Democrats of being willfully ignorant during Wednesday's floor debate.
"My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have an innocent explanation for every single incident," Armstrong said. "The problem is it's very difficult to see an innocent explanation for all of the incidents."
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), endorsing the inquiry, called for GOP restraint, saying, "shrill voices should be kept far from this inquiry lest they undermine its legitimacy and credibility."
"Democrats would have us simply turn a blind eye to mounting evidence of a family influence-peddling scheme that implicates the President. This we cannot do," McClintock said, before adding, "Last session, the Democrats made a mockery of impeachment and we cannot allow them to become our teachers."
© Getty ImagesRep. Jason Smith (R-MO), Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol on December 13, 2023 in Washington, DC.
"I would vote right now to impeach the president," Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) told The Post, adding that he believes Hunter should be held in contempt as soon as possible for evading his deposition on Wednesday. "I think that we have a situation where the President is extremely compromised."
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) led the Democratic counterargument, claiming of Republicans, "The only thing they've uncovered is that Joe Biden is a good dad, that he loves his family."
"We hear the same tired old conspiracy theories being recycled over and over and over again that have all been debunked," added McGovern.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Oversight Committee ranking member, told The Post after the authorization vote that whether or not the House ultimately passes articles of impeachment against Biden "is all up to [former President] Donald Trump on their side of the aisle, as you know."
Asked whether he had evidence of Trump orchestrating the impeachment inquiry, Raskin said: "Do I have any evidence? Yes, I do, but I'm not going to share it with you right now."
Pressed for more information, Raskin said "I've heard from some members" that Trump is pulling the strings, contrary to Republican leadership dismissing the claim as a red herring.
"He went public with it too," Raskin went on. "There are lots of tweets saying, 'Go ahead and impeach him, they did it to me.'"
The Democrat also told The Post that "I've never met Hunter Biden in my life" and said when asked if there were legitimate corruption questions in the case: "There's always a corruption concern in government."
"Hey, it's a democratic society. We should ask questions about all of our leaders, but one guy has 91 outstanding criminal charges against him and tried to overthrow the government of the United States. The other one has been in public life for more than a half century and has never been prosecuted or convicted of anything," Raskin summed up.
Manhattan Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, argued during the House floor debate that the entire investigation was "pernicious nonsense."
"The right wing is getting restless. So since they can't legislate and run it in anything positive, they've decided to tear down President Biden," Nadler said.
Members of the House Rules Committee, which voted Tuesday to advance the impeachment resolution to the floor, told The Post that their inquiry had already assembled enough evidence to prove that Hunter was "selling access" to his father during the vice presidency but more would be needed to file articles of impeachment.
"We need to know the extent to which that was true, the extent to which the vice-president-turned-candidate-turned-president lied about it. And then the extent to which this administration has been obstructing justice in our being able to seek the truth," said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).
© Ralph Norman/XU.S. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC)
"I don't know what they've debunked," he said, before referring to allegations produced in Hunter Biden's recent tax fraud indictment in Los Angeles. "Not allowing evidence to come in is not debunking anything. The checks are real. The suspicious activity reports are real. The tax evasion."
"Just once tell us, Hunter, what were you selling? What was your sale? What were they talking about?" Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) told The Post. "Why did your dad call in on over 20 phone calls with international archcriminals, people that are on the run today?"
"I get a little agitated when 90% of the media tells us we have no evidence whatsoever," Meuser went on. "I don't know how circumstantial it can be when payments are made, like day of and then 10% gets to the big guy."
"I was the former revenue secretary in Pennsylvania," he added, "and calling a gift or a payment a loan is one of the oldest tricks in the book."
Comment: "The walls are closing in!" Maybe this time for real?