Speaker Kevin McCarthy declined to say whether or not he believes President Joe Biden has taken bribes in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday evening.
Mr McCarthy, who represents a district in California, is the highest-ranking Republican in the federal government and has clashed with Mr Biden since taking the gavel in the House of Representatives at the beginning of the year.
In his appearance on Fox News, Hannity pressed Mr McCarthy to say outright that Mr Biden engaged in influence peddling — rehashing a long discredited claim that Mr Biden used his office as vice president to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor who was supposedly investigating an energy company whose board Hunter Biden served on. In fact, Mr Biden and European allies were leveraging aid to Ukraine to help oust the prosecutor as part of broader anti-corruption efforts in the country. The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was not investigating the company, Burisma.
Mr McCarthy promised that House Republicans would continue investigating Mr Biden and criticised the president’s behaviour, but stopped short of saying outright that he was guilty of bribery.
“This isn’t about Hunter Biden,” Mr McCarthy said. “This is about paying to play for the Biden family because the money goes to nine different members through shell companies, much like the informant said. So we will continue to follow the information wherever it takes us and provide it to the American public. The difference here is, we don’t do it for political purposes. We follow the Constitution.”
Mr McCarthy, who in the past has hinted that the Republican House might impeach Mr Biden, again suggested that his caucus is prepared to move against the president depending on the results of their ongoing inquiries into his actions.
“We will take it wherever it [goes], and if it rises to the level, we will do our Constitutional duties — and this is the part I want America to know: America has a right to know if there was pay to play,” Mr McCarthy said. “America has a right to know if Garland is lying to them.”
On Wednesday, White House Counsel spokesperson Ian Sams strongly criticised Mr McCarthy’s comments in a statement provided to Mediaite.
“Last night on Hannity, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy continued lying about President Biden — making a series of plainly false, widely debunked attacks in order to promote the extreme far right’s baseless impeachment stunt that even some members of McCarthy’s own caucus are expressing concerns about pursuing,” Mr Sams wrote.
Mr McCarthy later in the interview said that he believes Mr Biden should turn over his bank statements to help clear his name of the bribery allegations that have animated the right wing of the Republican Party and the conservative media ecosystem.
Later in the interview, Hannity again tried to pin Mr McCarthy down on the question of whether Mr Biden took bribes.
“Do you believe we are looking at a bribery scandal with Joe Biden, who’s now president — actions he took as vice president in exchange for family enrichment?” Hannity asked.
Mr McCarthy again attacked Mr Biden, but declined to answer the question directly.
“I don’t know of any other family that puts together in government 20 shell companies when you’re the vice president of America,” Mr McCarthy said. “My family has no shell companies.”
In his statement, Mr Sams said Mr McCarthy and his caucus are “prioritizing their own extreme, far-right political agenda.”
“Instead of pursuing this shameless and baseless impeachment stunt, House Republicans and Speaker McCarthy should join the President to work on continuing to bring down inflation and lower costs, create jobs, and grow the economy,” Mr Sams wrote. “That is, after all, what the American people sent their leaders to Washington to do.”
