The House Rules Committee voted Tuesday to send a resolution to the full House to authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, setting up a vote on the move Wednesday in the narrowly divided lower chamber.
The House panel voted 9-4 along party lines to advance the resolution, with every Democrat objecting to the measure.
The impeachment inquiry resolution is expected to be put to a floor vote Wednesday, two sources previously told The Post.
“We are here to assert a process, not an outcome,” Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in his opening remarks, adding that Republicans were merely following the “precedent” set by Democrats during the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump in 2019.
Cole said the resolution was merely “formalizing” efforts already underway in the House Ways and Means, Judiciary and Oversight Committees “to give the House the strongest legal standing to pursue needed information and enforce subpoenas.”
Republicans are targeting the president over alleged corruption involving his son Hunter and brother James Biden’s foreign business ventures during his vice presidency.
House Rules Committee Democratic Ranking Member Jim McGovern of Massachusetts disagreed with Coles’ assessment that the resolution was just the start of a process.
“We are not here to begin a proceeding,” he said, calling it “a shocking weaponization of the impeachment process by MAGA extremists who are dead-set on doing anything and everything they can to help elect Donald Trump.
“There’s been an impeachment inquiry from Day One that has been going on,” he said.
Other Democrats on the panel argued that no high crimes and misdemeanors had been alleged yet and that the ongoing impeachment investigation lacked transparency and was often conducted behind closed doors instead of before the American public.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a Tuesday press conference at the Capitol said the White House had given Republicans “no choice” in launching the impeachment by repeatedly dodging interview and records requests.
“The impeachment inquiry is necessary now, as our, as [House Majority] Whip [Tom] Emmer [R-Minn.] just explained, because we’ve come to this impasse, where following the facts where they lead is hitting a stone wall because the White House is impeding that investigation now,” Johnson told reporters.
“They’re not allowing witnesses to come forward and [holding back] thousands of pages of documents.”
House Republicans are seeking access to thousands of pseudonymous emails that Biden sent as vice president to share information about his official duties with his son and business partners.
They are also seeking depositions requested by the House Judiciary Committee after two IRS whistleblowers alleged key officials interfered in a five-year investigation into Hunter Biden.
GOP lawmakers have already uncovered millions of dollars that flowed from foreign entities to Biden family members through “shell companies” operated by first son Hunter and his associates — during and immediately after his father’s tenure as vice president.
Those include more than $6 million in payments to Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden from CEFC China Energy in 2017 and another $3.5 million from Moscow first lady Yelena Baturina to an entity linked to Hunter in 2014.
That same year, Kenes Rakishev, a Kazakhstani national, also purchased Hunter Biden a $142,000 sports car, and Vadym Pozharsky, the owner of Burisma Holdings, began to pay the first son $1 million per year to sit on the Ukrainian gas company’s board — despite having no relevant energy experience.
Another $1 million from the corrupt Romanian oligarch Gabriel Popoviciu eventually ended up in nine different Biden family members’ bank accounts.
Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer testified to the House Oversight Committee earlier this year that Joe Biden spoke with his son’s foreign business associates at least 22 times on the phone — and dined with some while he was still vice president.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has also produced $240,000 in checks paid directly to the president from Hunter and James Biden that he alleges were “laundered” from foreign entities.
Last week, President Biden denied any involvement in the alleged influence-peddling schemes by his family members, saying he “did not” meet with any of his son’s or brother’s business contacts.
“I did not. And it’s just a bunch of lies. They’re lies. I did not. They’re lies,” he told a Post reporter at the White House.
According to a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll last month, 60% of Americans now believe “Joe Biden helped and participated in Hunter Biden’s business.”
Several House Republicans have recently expressed reservations about how airtight the case is for impeachment against the president, even as they support moving forward with their conference’s inquiry.