OC Register
As Republicans continue to probe President Joe Biden‘s involvement with his son’s business dealings, the House will hold a hearing next week on an impeachment inquiry.
The proceedings — right as the 2024 elections are underway — come at the behest of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The Bakersfield Republican has faced tremendous pressure from the more right side of his party to take on Biden from Congress.
Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and his business dealings have been at the center of aggressive GOP-led congressional inquiries. So far, they have not produced hard evidence linking his business dealings to the president, but McCarthy, in instructing the House Oversight Committee to take the lead on the impeachment inquiry, said the probes have found “a culture of corruption” among the Biden family that warrants further review.
The White House has blasted Republicans as “staging a political stunt.”
Neither of Orange County’s Republican House members, Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel, sit on the Oversight Committee, which is in charge of the Thursday hearing. But Kim says she will keep an eye on what comes from the hearing.
“This inquiry allows relevant committees to get more information on serious allegations, follow the facts and be transparent with the American people,” said Kim.
Steel, through a spokesperson, declined to comment for this story.
Both Kim and Steel represent districts that went for Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump in 2020. And the impeachment inquiry is largely considered to be potential trouble for Republicans in competitive districts.
In Steel’s district, nearly 38% of voters are registered Democrats compared to about 32% Republicans and about 25% no party preference.
For Kim, nearly 38% of voters are registered Republicans with about 34% Democrats and 23% no party preference.
Polling in 18 congressional districts that elected a Republican to Congress in 2022 but went for Biden in 2020 found most voters (56%) felt the investigation would be “more of a partisan political stunt” rather than “a serious effort to investigate important problems.” (The survey was conducted among registered voters in those districts by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling.)
The Oversight Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the impeachment inquiry on Thursday, Sept. 18 at 7 a.m. PDT.
“This effort is not legitimate oversight based in real facts or problems facing the American people,” said Rep. Katie Porter, an Irvine Democrat who is a member of the Oversight Committee.
“It’s a mere distraction from the Republican majority’s inability to fulfill basic duties of governing, such as funding the government,” said Porter.
House Republicans — led by Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee — have obtained thousands of pages of financial records from various members of the Biden family and their associates through subpoenas to the Treasury Department and various financial institutions.
Comer has repeatedly said — without substantial evidence — that there is enough in those documents to draw a clear line between Hunter Biden trading on his father’s name and policy decisions Biden made while vice president. No such connection has been proven.
