Texas Senator Ted Cruz declared that any evidence against President Joe Biden is only circumstantial, arguing convictions have been based on such evidence in the past.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced an impeachment inquiry into Mr Biden on Tuesday, claiming that there are serious allegations of corruption, including that Mr Biden worked to aid his son’s foreign business interests while he was vice president and that he benefitted financially from the arrangement.
No public evidence has been shared to substantiate the claims against the president.
“It's pretty damn good evidence – circumstantial evidence – people are convicted and sent to jail every day of the week based on circumstantial evidence,” Mr Cruz said on Fox News. “Circumstantial evidence is you draw inferences from the circumstances.”
Nancy Mace, House Republican of South Carolina, told CNN that she would support the inquiry, noting that it was a tool to get more information, specifically access to Mr Biden’s bank records.
“I think there's a difference between an impeachment vote and an inquiry – the inquiry would give us another tool in the toolbox specifically to look at Joe Biden's bank records,” she said. “Everyone's screaming about the evidence, where's the evidence? The bank records hold all of the evidence and ... if you could see the suspicious activity reports that I have seen on the Biden family, you ... too would probably support an impeachment inquiry just as a tool to get more information on the ... bank records of Joe Biden, his family members.”
Ms Mace said that the records could possibly substantiate allegations of bribery and money laundering. “The kind of money that was involved in these schemes is astounding. You would be shocked, you would blush ... if you knew.”
Pennsylvania Republican Scott Perry lost his temper with a reporter who said that the US public “can’t see” the supposed evidence against Mr Biden.
“What actual evidence do you have as opposed to allegations to show to the American people that would merit an actual impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden, and prove that today isn’t just about ...” Siobhan Kennedy of the UK’s Channel 4 News asked before being interrupted by Mr Perry.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, sarcastically.
Kennedy asked if Mr McCarthy was launching the inquiry “for the sake of enacting political revenge for the impeachment of Donald Trump?”
“This isn’t about political revenge. We have the bank accounts. You can see that the homes that the Bidens own can’t be afforded on a congressional or a Senate salary,” Mr Perry said.
“You also understand that it’s not normal for family members to receive millions of dollars from overseas interests. Those things aren’t normal. That’s not normal to have 20 shell companies. These things are not normal, and it alludes to not only just widespread corruption, but money laundering, if not influence-peddling itself,” he claimed.
“The American people can’t see that. They think it’s political revenge,” Kennedy said.
“Because you don’t report on it,” Mr Perry said.
The charge to impeach Mr Biden – seen in some quarters as a transparent bid for revenge over the dual impeachments suffered by his predecessor, Donald Trump – has been led by congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has already failed in the endeavour on at least six previous occasions since the Democratic president took office in January 2021.
The Georgia representative has already filed House resolutions proposing to open impeachment inquiries into Mr Biden over a baseless Republican conspiracy theory concerning his dealings in Ukraine as vice president in 2016, his extension of the federal Covid-19 eviction moratorium, his handling of US-Mexico border security (twice), the US withdrawal of military personnel from Afghanistan and claims that he endangered American energy security by selling oil to foreign nations.
Randy Weber, Bob Gibbs, Lauren Boebert, Bill Posey, Louie Gohmert, Andy Ogles and Greg Steube have likewise all filed impeachment motions of their own against the president to the 117th and 118th Congress, all of which have simply been politely referred on to the House Judiciary Committee and never heard of again.
This time, the populist wing of the GOP embodied by Ms Greene is determined to haul Mr Biden and his troubled son over the coals on the question of the latter’s corporate interests and over whether the Biden administration’s Justice Department has intervened on the younger man’s behalf during the ongoing criminal case against him
So far, no evidence has been brought forward to prove any wrongdoing.
