U.S. House Republicans secure enough votes to formalize Biden's impeachment inquiry

U.S. House of Representatives Republicans on Wednesday secured enough votes to formalize their ongoing impeachment inquiry into Democratic President Joe Biden. 

"Instead of doing anything to help make Americans' lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies," said Biden in a White House statement released shortly after the impeachment inquiry was authorized. 

In the statement, Biden condemned the House Republicans for not doing their job on the urgent work that needs to be done, saying that they are wasting time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts.

The House of Representatives voted 221-212 along party lines to approve the probe, which is examining whether Biden improperly benefited from his 53-year-old son Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings. 

"The impeachment power resides solely with the House of Representatives," Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, a hardliner within the Republican party, told reporters.

"If a majority of the House now says we're in an official impeachment inquiry as part of our constitutional duty to do oversight, that carries weight. That's going to help us get these witnesses in," said the Ohio Republican, one of the leaders of the impeachment push.

Republicans hope the impeachment inquiry vote would give them better legal standing to hold the president's son in contempt of Congress should he fail to show.

Hunter Biden, the first child of a sitting president to be criminally indicted, appeared at a news conference outside the Capitol Wednesday morning when he again offered to testify in a public hearing after refusing to appear at a closed-door deposition Republicans demanded.

(With input from agencies)

(Cover: U.S. President Joe Biden gives remarks in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., December 12, 2023. /CFP)