Biden’s brother to testify in House Republicans impeachment inquiry

Following negotiations that came close to falling apart, Hunter Biden is also expected to appear for an interview next week

President Joe Biden’s brother James Biden is set to give testimony today during a closed-door meeting with House Republicans, as part of their impeachment inquiry into the president.

The interview on Wednesday in their so-far chaotic and lacklustre investigation will take place after the House Republicans brought forward a number of business and family associates who testified that Mr Biden has not been a part of any of his family business dealings abroad – the main allegation that prompted the inquiry in the first place.

Republicans leading the probe are fighting against increasing dissatisfaction within their own party over the investigation, with many concerned that it might backfire in an election year and lose them their narrow House majority.

Following negotiations that came close to falling apart, the president’s son Hunter Biden is also expected to appear for a closed-door interview next week.

A decision on whether to move forward with articles of impeachment is expected after the interviews with James and Hunter Biden, according to CNN.

House Speaker Mike Johnson may have to give his approval to the impeachment, despite having initially failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas following three Republican defections. House Republicans subsequently managed to impeach the secretary by a one-vote margin.

Since December, Republicans have spoken to eight people who worked with the Bidens.

But, despite their efforts to unearth wrongdoing, hundreds of pages of testimony and hours of interviews have failed to result in any evidence that the president took part in, or drew any benefit from, the business schemes.

Several skeptical House Republicans have said that Mr Biden’s conduct does not reach the level of high crimes or misdemeanours required to impeach him.

James Biden (left) and Hunter Biden (right) (AP)

On Tuesday, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee harshly criticised a witness for the Republicans.

In a scathing nine-page letter obtained by The Independent, Maryland Rep Jamie Raskin went after Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden.

Mr Bobulinski subsequently became a staunch Biden family detractor, appearing before the House panel last week where he once again shared claims he also made during the 2020 election that the president had acted to create opportunities for his family to make money abroad.

Mr Bobulinski claimed that the Biden business schemes “sold out to foreign actors who were seeking to gain influence and access to Joe Biden and the United States government”.

On Tuesday, Mr Raskin wrote in a letter to Mr Bobulinski’s lawyer and the Republican chair of the panel, Kentucky Rep James Comer, that Mr Bobulinski’s “interview was chaotic to the point of burlesque as he repeatedly yelled, shouted, filibustered, and hurled outlandish and baseless accusations and insults against Democratic Members and staff”.

Mr Raskin said he was “baffled and amused” by a letter in which Mr Bobulinski’s attorney Stefan Passantino, who worked in the Office of White House Counsel during the Trump administration, said that Mr Raskin’s previous account of Mr Bobulinski’s eight-hour testimony was a “grotesque mischaracterization”.

“I stand proudly by my statement that over the course of his more than eight hours of belabored testimony, Mr. Bobulinski did not offer any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden,” Mr Raskin wrote. “He also did not provide any evidence that President Biden was involved in his family’s business dealings. Furthermore, unable to point to any evidence to support his wild claims against President Biden, Mr. Bobulinski casually accused a broad group of individuals and organizations of lying.”

Last week, Special Counsel David Weiss charged a former FBI informant with lying about Mr Biden and his son’s business dealings with Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.

Following his arrest, Alexander Smirnov said that he was handed the false information about Hunter Biden by Russian intelligence, prosecutors said in a Tuesday court filing.