The weakness of Biden impeachment articles

There’s a lot of talk among House Republicans about impeaching President Joe Biden. But GOP members disagree on whether there is enough evidence to go forward. On one hand, Republican investigators have made enormous progress in the past few weeks. The testimony of former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer demolished Joe Biden’s claim that he didn’t talk to his son about Hunter’s shady foreign business deals. GOP lawmakers are also finding increasing evidence that foreign money flowed to multiple members of the Biden family close to Joe Biden himself.

“We have caught Joe Biden in so many lies,” House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer told Fox News recently. “I can’t even count the number of lies now. So we have put together a case that I think would stand up in any court of law in America.”

Of course, no one is talking about criminal charges against the sitting president of the United States. Rather, if Republicans were to take action against Biden, it would be through impeachment. GOP House members have filed several resolutions of impeachment against Biden. Now there is a new one, the first since the Archer testimony, from a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube. The resolution, containing four articles of impeachment, shows why the effort to impeach Biden is just not there yet.

Article One attempts to link Joe Biden to Hunter Biden’s, and brother James Biden’s, influence peddling operations. The article says Hunter and James Biden “sold access” to then-Vice President Joe Biden and then “sold promised access” to Joe Biden before he became president. Joe Biden himself “assisted by making appearances, phone calls, meeting with business partners, and knowingly allowing his family members to promise access to him and actions by him in furtherance of these schemes.” The Biden family, the article says, benefited financially from that; Joe Biden’s role was an “abuse of power” and a violation of federal law.

Article Two accuses Joe Biden of obstruction of justice, charging that the Biden Justice Department interfered with investigations into Hunter Biden’s activities. The accusations are taken from two IRS whistleblowers who have outlined in detail how DOJ dragged its feet and actually blocked IRS investigators from looking into what appeared to be clear tax evasion by Hunter Biden. “These acts constitute an abuse of power as well as obstruction of justice,” the article says.

Article Three accuses Joe Biden of fraud for a matter in which James Biden allegedly deceived investors in a health care company. “Access to Joe Biden and indications that Joe Biden supported these schemes were used to lure investors into the schemes,” the article says.

Finally, Article Four accuses Joe Biden of “financial involvement in drug and prostitution activities.” The article says Joe Biden and Hunter Biden “have a long history of comingled and intertwined finances.” During the 2010s, Hunter Biden was famously blowing millions of dollars on drugs and prostitutes, both of which are illegal. “Given the intermingled finances of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, Joe Biden financially supported and should have been aware of these drug transactions and prostitution transactions,” the article says. “Many of these transactions would have occurred using accounts with a nexus to Joe Biden.”

So that is the current case against Joe Biden. The obvious weakness in all the articles is that they are based on an effort to tie Joe Biden to Hunter Biden’s, or James Biden’s, allegedly illegal activities. Republicans have made great progress in beginning to discover such links. They have shown that Joe Biden lied about his knowledge of Hunter’s activities, which is an important breakthrough. There appears to be much left to be discovered.

In addition, Republican have convincingly established that the Biden administration improperly interfered with investigation of Hunter Biden’s activities. That is an important breakthrough, too, although there is much more to learn.

So as far as the first two articles are concerned, there is good reason for Republicans to push forward with their investigation. The third article, about James Biden, is very iffy, and the fourth article, about Joe Biden’s knowledge of Hunter’s drugging and whoring, will never go anywhere.

And that is the current state of efforts to impeach Joe Biden. Republicans do not yet have a convincing case for impeachment. Maybe they will get there, and maybe they won’t. As far as exercising general restraint against taking the extreme measure of impeachment is concerned — well, that sort of restraint went out with Nancy Pelosi’s leadership of the House. If Republicans do eventually gather enough evidence against Biden, they’ll use it. But they don’t have it yet.

This content originally appeared on the Washington Examiner at washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-weakness-of-biden-impeachment-articles.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.