Pedro González
Journalist
They finally did it. The Republican majority in the US House of Representatives managed to open impeachment proceedings against current president Joe Biden, accused of having benefited from his son’s business dealings during his time as Barack Obama’s vice-president (2009-2017).
Biden thus becomes the fourth president to face impeachment, as the process is legally known. Before him were Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Biden’s own predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump, twice, in 2019 and 2021. None of them were ultimately convicted of “treason, corruption, or other high crimes or misdemeanours”, as provided for in the US Constitution of 1787. The most likely to have been was Richard Nixon, who, when his direct involvement in the so-called Watergate affair of spying on the Democratic Party was discovered, chose to resign rather than suffer the opprobrium of a humiliating impeachment.
In the case of Joe Biden, it is also unlikely that the process, if consummated, will result in a conviction and subsequent impeachment of the current White House occupant. But it is also clear that the mere fact that it has begun introduces a new and important distorting factor in the 2024 election campaign, from whose candidacy Biden has not yet withdrawn, even though he has repeatedly hinted at his fatigue and his desire to withdraw from the race, which he says he will not give up if he faces Donald Trump again, in the belief that he is the only one who could beat him.
Up to three House committees have been investigating and scrutinising for a year the possible illegal benefits that Biden could have obtained from his son Hunter’s business dealings. Hunter, of whom his father says he is very proud, has had a checkered past because of his drug addiction. Apparently cured of all that, some prosecutors accuse him of having profited from 15 million dollars, which he allegedly received from both companies and foreign governments between 2014 and 2019. Some of them have always been under the scrutiny of US security agencies, as they are companies and/or governments from Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania and China. A group of Hunter Biden’s associates have also allegedly received a further 9 million dollars, all benefits whose illegality has not yet been proven, but which the most “Trumpist” wing of the Republican Party wants to take advantage of to destroy both Biden and the Democratic Party, and to screw even more the advantage currently given by the polls for Donald Trump to return to the White House.
Any statement or gesture is immediately exploited politically. Thus, Hunter Biden’s refusal to appear for a closed hearing in the lower house last Wednesday has triggered all sorts of expletives and forced suspicions. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is particularly incisive, saying that “the White House is blocking key testimony”. House Speaker Mike Johnson himself concludes that “the Biden family received $15 million from foreign companies and governments”, leaving the impression that not everything is clean and transparent in such earnings.
In the Democratic ranks, the message is to accuse the Republicans of “working for Trump instead of for the citizens”. Democratic congressmen believe that “we are witnessing the continuation of the crusade to reverse the 2020 election result”, in the words of Congressman Jim McGovern.
In any case, with the door to the process open, the Republicans will step on the accelerator so that the House of Representatives will end up voting as soon as possible on whether to finally judge the president. They are relying on their majority of 221 votes to 212. If that were to happen, the process would pass to the Senate, which would be in charge of issuing the final verdict. Although slim, the Democrats enjoy the majority in the upper chamber that would presumably vote to acquit President Biden. This would not, however, have prevented the tremendous dirty war that is about to intensify. If the previous one has already been dubbed the most poisonous in history, the one that will officially take place throughout 2024 promises to be even more degrading and filthy.
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