The passage of House Resolution 918 will direct the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees to continue their ongoing investigations, formalizing the inquiry, which will help remove legal ambiguity and gives lawmakers better ability to enforce subpoenas. The Biden White House has challenged subpoenas by arguing that the existing impeachment proceedings were not authorized. However, H.R. 918 addresses those concerns. According to a fact sheet released the day of the vote, the resolution cites the precedent set by Democrats during their impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump in 2019. Democrats continue to maintain there is no evidence of wrongdoing and that Republicans are wasting their time. However, the House Oversight Committee has already catalogued a litany of circumstantial evidence suggesting the Biden family may have been engaged in unethical or illegal activities. Committee members say they have identified 20 shell companies created by the Biden family, and that the Bidens and their associates garnered more than $24 million in illicit payments from China, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Romania between 2015-2019. Among the committee’s findings are numerous questionable payments lawmakers say were connected to an “influence peddling scheme” whereby Biden allegedly used his power as then-vice president to trade favors in exchange for cash. Three additional memoranda from the Oversight Committee (Memo 1, Memo 2, Memo 3) provide additional evidence GOP lawmakers say point to potentially illegal activity committed during the time Biden served as number two in the White House. “President Biden needs to come clean. He has repeatedly misled the American people about his knowledge of, and role in, his family’s overseas business dealings,” Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said of the inquiry. “Formalizing this Impeachment Inquiry will allow us to get the answers the American people deserve.” “Democrats impeached a POTUS once for phone call & a second time for a speech,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.). “These same DEMs are mad at Republicans for initiating an impeachment inquiry on a POTUS who acted as a coconspirator in his family's pay-for-play unregistered foreign agent business dealings.” Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sounded off against the resolution, dismissing the resolution as political retaliation. “House Republicans are pushing impeachment as payback for Trump being impeached when he withheld aid to Ukraine,” she said. Oversight Committee Democrats said, “After 11 months of this, no one can tell us what President Biden’s crime was, where it happened, when it happened, what the motive was, who the perpetrators or victims were."House Republicans have passed a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden with a party line vote of 221-212.
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