Washington:

The Republican-controlled US Home of Representatives voted Wednesday to open a proper impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden based mostly on his son’s controversial worldwide dealings — a transfer Biden himself slammed as a “baseless” stunt.

Republicans have but to offer proof of corruption by the president, and the Democratic-led Senate can be unlikely to convict the US chief even when the inquiry did result in an precise impeachment trial.

Regardless, the process ensures Republicans a brand new, high-profile platform to assault Biden as he campaigns for reelection in 2024 — and to distract from the federal felony trials going through his virtually sure challenger Donald Trump.

The vote of 221 to 212 was alongside strict occasion strains, with each Republican voting for it and each Democrat in opposition to.

Conservatives accuse Biden’s troubled son Hunter of influence-peddling — successfully buying and selling on the household identify in pay-to-play schemes throughout his enterprise dealings in Ukraine and China.

The allegations in opposition to Hunter Biden check with incidents that happened earlier than his father turned president, and the White Home has careworn there was no wrongdoing.

Biden himself responded instantly after the vote, accusing Republicans of stalling on a large number of key fronts whereas obsessing over a want to attain political factors in opposition to a president working for reelection in 2024.

“As an alternative of doing something to assist make Individuals’ lives higher, they’re centered on attacking me with lies,” Biden mentioned in a prolonged assertion.

“As an alternative of doing their job on the pressing work that must be performed, they’re selecting to waste time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit isn’t supported by details.”

Republicans for his or her half insist the work has advantage.

“As President Biden continues to stonewall lawful Congressional subpoenas, at this time’s vote of the complete Home of Representatives authorizing the inquiry places us within the strongest place to implement these subpoenas in court docket,” mentioned Home Republican Elise Stefanik a member of occasion management.

– ‘Zero proof’ –

Hunter Biden, whose chaotic private life and enterprise dealings have develop into a magnet for right-wing conspiracy theories and media investigations, issued an indignant assertion in Washington.

“My father was not financially concerned in my enterprise,” he mentioned.

A Yale-trained lawyer and lobbyist-turned-artist whose life has been marred by private tragedy, alcoholism and crack cocaine habit, Hunter Biden was chatting with reporters from Capitol Hill, after refusing to attend a closed-door listening to led by Republicans simply inside.

Egged on by Trump — who was impeached twice, together with for his makes an attempt to overturn the outcomes of his 2020 election loss to Biden — the Republican Get together first started probing a doable Biden impeachment earlier this yr. Hearings started late September, resulting in the choice to carry Wednesday’s vote.

Home Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer charged Wednesday that the investigations to this point have “revealed how Joe Biden knew of, participated in, and benefited from his household cashing in on the Biden identify all over the world.”

Consultants interviewed throughout the proceedings, nevertheless, mentioned there was no proof to justify a Biden impeachment.

And Democrats say the Republicans are enjoying pure politics.

“There’s zero proof that President Biden has engaged in any wrongdoing,” Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries mentioned Tuesday.

The Republicans, nevertheless, say that by triggering the complete inquiry they’ll acquire new authorized powers permitting them to search out the proof they want.

“It is time to get the American individuals solutions,” Speaker of the Home Mike Johnson mentioned on X, previously Twitter.

The US Structure supplies that Congress might take away a president for “treason, bribery or different excessive crimes and misdemeanors.”

Impeachment by the Home, which is the political equal of a felony indictment, would spark a trial by the Senate, with the president shedding his job if convicted — an unlikely state of affairs for Biden given the chamber’s Democratic management.

Though three US presidents have been impeached — Andrew Johnson in 1868, Invoice Clinton in 1998, and Trump in 2019 and 2021 — none has ever been faraway from workplace by the Senate.

Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 within the face of an virtually sure impeachment within the fallout of the Watergate scandal.

(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)