Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy admitted on air that House Republicans have no “concrete evidence” to impeach President Joe Biden.
Mr Biden and Mr Doocy, the son of Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy, have had their run-ins in the past, including Mr Biden being caught on a hot mic calling the reporter a “stupid son of a b****” and on a separate occasion dismissing one of his questions as “garbage”.
According to the progressive media watchdog Media Matters, “Fox News propagandists are still eagerly shoveling Rep. James Comer’s (R-KY) slop to their viewers, nearly one year into the House Oversight Committee chair’s shambolic campaign to damage President Joe Biden’s political standing by focusing on his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings”.
But when the younger Mr Doocy appeared on Fox Business on Friday, he made clear that Mr Comer is fighting an uphill battle with the House expected to vote on formalising the impeachment inquiry next week.
“House Republicans are still trying to connect—they’re trying to trace money that originated overseas and went into Hunter Biden’s accounts [and] to accounts controlled by Joe Biden,” Mr Doocy told host Stuart Varney.
Mr Comer recently appeared on Fox News, claiming that there’s “overwhelming” evidence and that the “walls are closing in” on Mr Biden.
Mr Doocy shared the response from the White House, stating: “This baseless stunt is not rooted in facts or reality but in extreme House Republicans’ shameless desire to abuse their power to smear President Biden.”
The reporter added that it’s “worth noting in this latest 56-page indictment, the only Biden accused of wrongdoing is Hunter”.
This week, the second son of the president faced his second indictment in connection to his taxes.
The most recent nine-count indictment includes allegations that Mr Biden, 53, didn’t pay at least $1.4m in federal taxes that he owed between 2016 and 2019.
The fresh legal filing comes after a plea deal fell apart in July which was supposed to see Mr Biden admitting to some tax and firearm offences in exchange for avoiding prison time.
The initial indictment came in September when prosecutors revealed three counts of lying on an application form to buy a handgun in 2018.
Congressional Republicans have used Mr Biden’s legal problems, past drug use, and foreign business dealings to open an impeachment inquiry into the president, despite no evidence supporting any links to the elder Biden.
Hunter Biden appeared on the Moby Pod podcast, published on 8 December.
“They’re trying to destroy a presidency. And so it’s not about me, and in their most base way, what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to kill me, knowing that it will be a pain greater than my father could be able to handle,” he said about the Republican attacks on him and his family.
Mr Biden met the musician while they both were in addiction recovery and Moby attended a 2021 art show hosted by Mr Biden, Vanity Fair reported at the time.
Nine fresh tax charges were filed against Mr Biden on 7 December. The legal filing states that he “engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4m in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019”.
The second indictment against Mr Biden includes allegations that he didn’t file or pay his taxes and that he also evaded assessment, with prosecutors claiming that he instead used the money to pay for “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature”.
Mr Biden “individually received more than $7 million in total gross income” between 2016 and October 2020, the indictment states. But Mr Biden “willfully failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes”, the prosecutors add in the legal filing.
After getting a loan from his personal lawyer, Mr Biden paid all his due taxes and fines in 2020. He could still face as much as 17 years in prison if convicted, The Daily Beast noted.
Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has said that he’s “seen no indication that there’s any kind of connection between the president and the actions for which his son has been charged”.
Mr Doocy said, “The House Oversight Committee has been at this for years, and they have so far not been able to provide any concrete evidence that Joe Biden personally profited from his son Hunter’s overseas business, but they are going to try again with this impeachment inquiry set to start next week”.
President Joe Biden answers a question from Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy as he speaks to members of the media while departing the White House on November 09, 2023 in Washington, DC— (Getty Images)
After Mr Comer was mocked for his most recent attack, which was revealed to have been $4,000 in truck payments the president made for his son which was reported on more than a year ago, Philip Bump wrote in a Washington Post analysis that Mr Comer’s “track record makes it obvious that he does not deserve the benefit of the doubt”.
“Allegations that he offers should not be granted the baseline assumption that they are true,” Mr Bump wrote.
