The impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, formally adopted by the House of Representatives in December of last year, has released its final report and recommendation. Prepared by the Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees, the report concludes that investigators have “accumulated evidence demonstrating that President Biden has engaged in impeachable conduct.”
According to the House investigating committees, Biden—while serving as vice president to Barack Obama—abused his office for monetary gain for himself and his family. The report states that “the Biden family and their business associates received tens of millions of dollars from foreign interests by leading those interests to believe that such payments would provide them access to and influence” with the U.S. federal government through then-Vice President Biden.
FOREIGN INFLUENCE.
In one 2014 instance cited in the inquiry report, Biden attended a dinner on behalf of his son Hunter with Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina. “Following the dinner, Baturina wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, a firm associated with Hunter Biden,” the report reads. “Then, months later, as Hunter Biden and his business associates continued to solicit more money from Baturina, Vice President Biden participated in a phone call with Baturina and Hunter Biden where Vice President Biden told Baturina, ‘you be good to my boy.'”
House investigators say, “Based on the totality of the evidence, it is inconceivable that President Biden did not understand that he was taking part in an effort to enrich his family by abusing his office of public trust.”
CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS.
In addition to accusations of public corruption and abuse of office, the investigating committees allege they’ve uncovered evidence that Biden abused his office “to conceal his mishandling of classified information as a private citizen.” The report notes that while serving in Obama‘s White House, Biden removed classified documents and appears to have stored them post-vice presidency “at the Penn Biden Center, at his personal residence in a garage, and at the University of Delaware.”
FAVORABLE LOANS.
An underreported aspect of the House probe into the Biden family was certain aspects of domestic political corruption. While much of the media coverage of the impeachment inquiry focused on Joe and Hunter Biden‘s foreign business dealings, the report also details that members of the Biden family received favorable loan terms from major Democratic Party benefactors.
“The Biden family leveraged Joe Biden’s positions of public trust to obtain over $8 million in loans from Democratic benefactors. Millions of dollars in loans have not been repaid and the paperwork supporting many of the loans does not exist and has not been produced to the Committees,” the impeachment inquiry report notes, adding: “This raises serious questions about whether these funds were provided as gifts disguised as loans.”
SPECIAL TREATMENT.
One of the more disturbing accusations in the House report is that the Biden family, including Joe and Hunter, received special treatment from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—essentially allowing their alleged criminal enterprise to operate without interference. The inquiry states that the DOJ and FBI slow-walked investigations into Hunter Biden and allowed the statute of limitations to run out on more serious charges against him.
Additionally, the House investigators contend that the Biden-Harris DOJ purposefully misled Congress “about the independence of law enforcement entities in the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden. Biden Administration political appointees exercised significant oversight and control over the investigation of the President’s son.”
OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.
Finally, the report alleges that the Biden-Harris government has engaged in obstruction of justice by refusing testimony and withholding key documents from House investigators. “The White House has impeded the Committees’ investigation of President Biden’s unlawful retention of classified documents, by refusing to make relevant witnesses available for interviews and by erroneously asserting executive privilege over audio recordings from Special Counsel Hur’s interviews with President Biden,” the report reads.
It adds: “In addition, the White House is preventing the National Archives from turning over documents that are material to the Committees’ inquiry.”
