President's brother James Biden to speak to Republicans' impeachment probe

[February 21, 2024]  By Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's brother James Biden is due to testify behind closed doors on Wednesday to a Republican-led House of Representatives impeachment inquiry that has sought to show that the Democrat improperly profited from his family's business.

James Biden is the first member of the president's family to testify in the probe. Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden, who is at the center of House Republicans' accusations, is due to speak to investigators next week.

House Republicans have pushed ahead with the election-year probe, and a parallel one of Biden's top border official, even after prosecutors charged a former FBI informant - whose claims played a key role in the probe - with lying to investigators.

House Republicans allege that the president and his family, including James, improperly profited from policy decisions Biden participated in as vice president in President Barack Obama's administration in 2009-17.

The White House has denied wrongdoing and dismissed the inquiry as a partisan attack. Multiple witnesses have said in their interviews with lawmakers that Biden was not involved with his family's business activities.

James Biden, 74, was connected to the business activities of his nephew Hunter Biden, an artist who was an investor and lawyer.

Former President Donald Trump, the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination to challenge Biden in the November election, has cheered on the investigation. Trump was impeached twice by the House, though he was acquitted by the Senate both times.

Federal prosecutors on Thursday said that they had charged the former FBI informant for lying to investigators about the head of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company on which Hunter Biden sat on the board, saying that he paid bribes to members of the Biden family.

In a court filing on Monday they alleged that the informant has ties to the Russian intelligence service, which they described as "not benign."

Congressional Republicans have repeatedly cited that informant's claims to bolster their accusations.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee holds an impeachment inquiry hearing into U.S. President Joe Biden, focused on his son Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 28, 2023. REUTERS/Jim Bourg/File photo

James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, downplayed the role that the informant's claims have played in the probe and vowed to continue the inquiry, even as Jamie Raskin, the panel's top Democrat, urged Republicans to end it.

"We will continue to follow the facts to propose legislation to reform federal ethics laws and to determine whether articles of impeachment are warranted," Comer said in a statement.

Hard-right Republicans have clamored for the impeachment of Biden and several of his cabinet officials since shortly after his election.

House Republicans last week voted to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden's top border official, for failing to curb record crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. The measure narrowly passed after three Republicans joined Democrats to vote against it, citing concerns that they had not found evidence of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" that the U.S. Constitution sets as the standard for impeachment.

The Democratic-majority Senate will be sworn in as jurors to take up the Mayorkas case next week, though it almost certainly will vote to acquit him.

The divided Congress has failed to advance much other legislation.

A bipartisan foreign aid bill passed in the Senate is stalled in the House amid disputes over providing more funds to Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion, while critical government funding bills to avert a partial shutdown on March 1 have not yet moved forward.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone and Rosalba O'Brien)

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