The NPR Politics Podcast - House Formalizes Impeachment Inquiry Into President Biden

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

The vote is intended, in part, to give lawmakers greater legal authority to enforce subpoenas. House Republicans allege that President Biden and his family engaged in "influence peddling" but so far have not presented evidence of impeachable offenses.This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Susan Davis, and congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh.This episode was edited by Erica Morrison. It was produced by Jeongyoon Han and Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Jessica from Tacoma, Washington. I'm just an hour or so away from defending my dissertation after five long years. This podcast was recorded at 6.17pm Eastern Time on Wednesday, December 13th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but hopefully I will now be called Dr. Jessica. Okay, here's the show. Let's assume. Well, now I'm curious what that dissertation was about. I need to know the topic. And let's assume congratulations are in order. Congratulations, Dr. Jessica.

Nice work. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. The House has passed a resolution to formalize an impeachment investigation into President Biden. The House voted 221 to 212, with all Republicans supporting the measure. Not all Democrats were present to vote. This caps a year-long effort to investigate the president for wrongdoing in theory, but in practice, it's still unclear exactly what this impeachment inquiry is for. Deirdre, did they provide any more clarity today during the speeches on what they are looking for or trying to prove? was a lot of the same allegations about sort of Biden family corruption charges that the three House Republican chairmen investigating the president and his family have been making for

months without really presenting any clear evidence to back it up. Some of the speeches were arguing that they were formalizing this impeachment inquiry because the White House wasn't providing documents and testimony, and that they had recently sent a letter pointing out the fact that the House wasn't in an official impeachment inquiry. So this was to respond to that and to hopefully, in their argument, get some more material that they were still looking to get. And after the vote tonight, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan did mention that one of the folks that he had subpoenaed, a prosecutor at the Justice Department involved in investigating Hunter Biden's tax issues, was expected to come in soon. So, I mean, in terms of the legal argument,

that's what they're presenting. In terms of the actual evidence or possible articles that they're looking to push, there was nothing new during today's debate. Well, and this has been the rub all along, right? Biden family corruption, but they have not been able to point to anything that President Biden did as president, and not even really as vice president, which is the time period some of this is about. They haven't been able to point to actual wrongdoing or direct ties to President Biden. I think it's also a really interesting point in this inquiry. And it came up at a hearing examining past impeachments that your point, Tam, that the allegations and the timeline of this allegations does not overlap with when Joe Biden has actually been president of the United States. And there is some legal

disagreement over whether you can even move forward with an impeachment process for alleged offenses that occurred prior to holding office. Certainly, you know, is one of the key parts of the allegations that Republicans make is that this was the Biden crime family, that it was a power for money. And a big chunk of this time, Joe Biden was a private citizen. So it's not entirely clear what influence he could have wielded in the time when he wasn't even serving in political office. That argument actually came up on the House floor today. The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler, said, you know, even if any of these things were legit offenses about Biden, anything that

happened when he was vice president or after is not an impeachable offense under the Constitution. Well, and I guess that these are some of the many things that will ultimately be debated more in terms of now that this is official, it's an official impeachment investigation. What can we committees and the Biden White House Counsel's Office about document requests. I think that will step up. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has named about 10 individuals he still wants to talk to beyond Hunter Biden, people like the president's brother, Jim Biden, some of Hunter Biden's business associates. But again, I mean, some of these people have appeared in closed door depositions and other business associate of Hunter's, Devin Archer did, and have said on the record that there was no financial benefit to Joe Biden, the father, and he wasn't involved in any of these business deals. So it'll be interesting to see if, you know, who comes in voluntarily. I do think if they hit a wall with getting Hunter Biden to come in for a closed door deposition, they will vote relatively soon to hold him in contempt of Congress and see

how that plays out in court. Tim, has the White House responded to any of this today? Well, the president put out a statement that was clearly written before the vote because it's long and talks about all of the things that he is working on for the American people and then concludes with, quote, instead of doing anything to help make Americans' lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies. Instead of doing their job on the urgent work that needs to be done, they are choosing to waste time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts. Because even if you want to forecast this forward, you already have senators, Republican senators, where if the House were to successfully pass an impeachment resolution, it would trigger a Senate trial. You already have multiple Senate Republicans on the record publicly saying, we don't see impeachable offenses. We don't see any there there. a bit of political theater when it seems like even if they pass something, anything, we can say pretty predictably it's a dead end in the Senate, barring some unseen or unheard

of allegation that comes forward against the president that's going to change the calculations here. But, you know, frankly, Republicans have been investing this for a very long time. Hunter Biden has been under federal investigation for years. That seems highly unlikely to happen. But politically speaking, I think it's going to be a central focus for House Republicans, certainly in the early part of the new year. We haven't seen a president removed.

For instance, President Bill Clinton was impeached but not convicted by the Senate. Former President Trump was impeached twice and not convicted by the Senate. So if this is a dead end at the Senate, then what is the political calculation here? Why are they doing this? There is a lot of pressure from the Republican base on House Republican leaders like the Speaker to move this. They've been pushing for months. Former President Trump himself has been pushing former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and now current House leadership to move forward on impeaching President Biden. A lot of the Republican base say this is, you know, retribution for the fact that Democrats

impeached Trump when they ran the House. I think this is a lot about politics. But going back to the political issue and some of the skepticism from Senate Republicans, some House Republicans who voted to documents saying this wasn't an official proceeding, that changed my mind. And I feel like it's okay to do this investigation, but he doesn't see any evidence yet. So I think there's a hurdle for the Speaker of the House, who only has a very narrow majority, to keep his party together if they do decide to bring articles of impeachment. If we take a step back from this specific impeachment inquiry, we are living in an era of revenge politics. You know, this is the third impeachment in almost as many years. I think we are, and that does not speak to the merit of this, because I think, you know, regardless of where you see these, there's some merit, there's some not merit.

But you go through three impeachments. But also just this year in Congress, there's been three censures. There's been an expulsion in the prior Congress. There's been efforts to throw members across the aisle off certain committees because the majority party didn't like their stance on certain things. Members in both chambers of Congress have been filing ethics complaints against each other. It is just a uniquely negative and vengeful time in politics. And I think this is more playing to type and playing to the politics of the era than being some weird outlier event that's happening. It's kind of par for the course right now. And former President Trump is running on I am your retribution. Like that is part of his campaign pitch. It's in the ether now. It's

just vengeance is part of the political dialogue. And I think that this fits pretty squarely in that. And, you know, there's already Republicans who have said they've seen enough. They're ready to impeach Joe Biden. They're ready to vote yes. I don't think the evidence is there yet. I don't think anyone besides very conservative partisans argue that the case for impeachment is there. But also, frankly, politically speaking, Donald Trump is facing a whole lot of legal trouble next year. And an impeachment inquiry against his opponent is a pretty good way to muddy the waters if the public is trying to look to decide between two men and who might be the most above board. Well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll have more in a moment. And we're back. And the vote to start an impeachment inquiry was not the only potentially aggravating thing for the president today.

His son, Hunter Biden, was called to testify in a closed door deposition by Republicans as part of their ongoing investigation. He declined and instead repeated his offer to testify in a public hearing, not behind closed doors. Here he was outside of the Capitol this morning. I'm here today to make sure that the House committee's illegitimate investigations of my family do not proceed on distortions, manipulated evidence, and lies. And I'm here today to acknowledge that I've made mistakes in my life and wasted opportunities and privileges I was afforded. For that, I'm responsible.

For that, I'm accountable. And for that, I'm making amends. Sue, what do you make of this sort of surprise appearance by the president's son? You know, whereas Hunter has been a rallying cry of Republicans. Well, there as a bit of sort of made-for-TV stagecraft today with the Capitol behind him and the shot, accomplished that. Legally speaking, he's on pretty thin ground. You know, if Congress subpoenas me and asks me to testify, I don't get to set the terms by which I speak to Congress. And House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has made it very clear that they might move forward with a contempt of Congress charge against Hunter Biden if he doesn't ultimately come and speak to them behind closed doors, which in Republicans' defense is the standard operating procedure for many of these congressional inquiries, that people are asked to speak behind closed doors. The depositions are often run by staff counsel, not by the full committees themselves. And then they can be called back to testify in public. That is very much how Democrats conducted certainly the first impeachment inquiry towards President Trump. What Republicans are asking for

is not unusual. It is unusual to think that the person being asked to testify could set the terms. Politically speaking, look, Hunter Biden has now given a very public on-camera statement that can be used over and over and over and over again on television and to the public. And I think from that perspective, they probably felt like they needed to put him out there and give some kind of response to the allegations against him. Yeah. I mean, the other thing to remember is that he has been indicted now twice on gun charges and tax charges. He has a lot of legal exposure. Right. So testifying in public might not be the best thing for him in his legal cases. That's certainly true. And look, House Republicans have not found nothing. House Republicans have

found information that is particularly damning towards Hunter Biden, towards the people that were trying to investigate him and maybe felt like they were being hamstrung in that, and certainly about his finances. None of that is directly tied to the president. But so far, the impeachment inquiry has been very damaging for Hunter Biden. The question is, can it ultimately draw a link to the president that they have not proven to the public yet? And Hunter Biden made the point in his statement, he didn't take any questions. He wasn't in a public hearing where he had to answer questions from lawmakers. But he made the point today that his father had no financial connections to his businesses. We haven't heard him talk on the record about these questions, right? And he

was there saying he had no connection to my Ukraine contract, he had no connection to my business dealings in China, to his art sales. So I mean, that accomplished what Sue was talking about in terms of the PR message about no connection to the president. So how did Republicans take this? I mean, as you can expect, the first thing they said is, you know, he's in defiance of a congressional subpoena. You know, other children of former President Trump, like Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, were subpoenaed and did appear in closed door depositions. Those were before the January 6th committee, as Sue mentioned, discussed moving forward with contempt proceedings, and they

confirmed after tonight's vote that they plan to do that. You know, I think they're determined to interview him. You know, and a contempt of Congress charge is no joke. Democrats pursued this against people like Trump ally Stephen Bannon, who was found guilty in court and is facing a potential prison sentence pending appeal of that case. So it's this isn't just a game here. You know, Hunter Biden sort of poking at Congress this way might also expose him to additional legal action against him. Just add it to the pile. Sue, the 2024 presidential race is upon us. And in fact, this is the closest to a presidential election that an impeachment inquiry has ever been started. So what is the potential impact on the 2024 presidential election?

And I guess both on the presidential level, but also on the congressional level. I mean, it's hard to see President Biden's approval getting any lower than it already is right now. He's not in a particularly good place. You take even take impeachment off the table and the president's not in the best position right now. You know, I am a little skeptical that this kind of stuff moves the needle, because if you are an American voter who believes that today that Joe Biden should be impeached, you're probably already a reliably Republican voter. You know, I think that a Trump-Biden election is an election between two essentially incumbents whose names and brand and ID is pretty well established with the American public. And any attempt to fundamentally alter that I don't think is going to be affected by things like impeachment. And I would put the corollary to that, this idea that all of these indictments against Trump might chip away against support or how the public views him.

And yet this still looks like a competitive race between these two people. I can't see how an impeachment inquiry that goes nowhere in the Senate is a game changer in the presidential race. But it is like one more knock against a president that's, you know, up against the ropes in a lot of ways with the American people and doesn't really need another reason to be on the defense. I mean, pivoting off of Sue's political analysis, I do think that impeachment could backfire on House Republicans, depending on how it goes, depending on how long it goes. In a lot of these swing districts where House Republicans need to hold them, they only have a, you know, right now four seat majority in the House of Representatives. It's expected to shrink next year with some folks retiring early. But some of the Republicans

in those districts haven't said yet they're comfortable voting for impeachment. And voters in those districts may look at the House of Representatives and say, you know, they're not focused on the things that I care about. You know, people are still feeling the impact of the economy. Maybe they don't feel that like things are getting better. And if the House is spending months on hearings and impeachment inquiries and impeachment investigations, is that what they think the people running the House of Representatives should be doing? And I think it depends, you know, on the potential for overreach in this situation. Look, it can also be a galvanizing thing for the Democratic base, right? Like there's nothing that gets the base angrier

than being mad at the other guy. And I think the Democratic base is going to look at this impeachment, at least as it stands right now, as pretty politically motivated. And it might have a rallying effect for Biden. And he's got a lot of problems with the base now as well, who are a little fatigued with his presidency and a lot of issues. So the unintended consequences of this are certainly something to consider. Well, we will continue to follow this story and everything happening on the Hill and beyond. You can follow us here. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

And I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.