Top House Republicans said President Joe Biden's impeachment inquiry might conclude by the end of the year with the deposition of Hunter Biden, and then a decision could be made on bringing formal articles to the floor.
"We get those depositions done this year and … then we can decide on whether or not there's articles," House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Politico on Tuesday.
Hunter Biden, the president's son, is under subpoena from the committee and is expected to be deposed in the coming weeks, according to the report.
"We understand that the further you go toward an election, the more politicized these conversations become," committee member Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., told Politico. "That's why it's all the more important for us to begin to take action sooner rather than later."
While the inquiry may be winding down with about 15 more interviews to finish by the end of the year, the political battle, even among Republicans, on whether to issue formal articles of impeachment is heating up with more centrist GOP House members concerned about how impeaching Biden will be perceived by the public with the 2024 election looming.
"Any kind of an impeachment puts our Biden people in a really tough spot," a GOP lawmaker involved in the investigation, who was granted anonymity, told Politico. "Impeachment hurts us politically — it makes our base feel better."
Those GOP members want to see more of a "smoking gun" before impeachment moves forward.
The report said Democrats and the White House are preparing to rebut Republican claims of Biden and his son peddling influence and accepting bribes for favorable policy decisions, as well as potential obstruction accusations.
"House Republicans have already spent a year on their expensive and time-consuming so-called 'investigation,' and they've turned up zero evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden," Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. "In fact, their own witnesses and the thousands of pages of documents they've obtained have repeatedly debunked their false allegations."
Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the GOP investigations "have my full and unwavering support," and should continue to follow the evidence.
"Now, the appropriate step is to place key witnesses under oath and question them under the penalty of perjury, to fill gaps in the record," Johnson told Politico, adding that Republicans are moving "toward an inflection point in this critical investigation."
Charles Kim ✉
Charles Kim, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in reporting on news and politics.
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