House to hold first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing next week amid shutdown fears
FOX News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram has more as government shutdown worries overshadow impeachment on 'Special Report.'
FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans announced Monday that the first impeachment inquiry hearing into President Biden will be held on Thursday at 10:00 a.m. ET.
According to the office of House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., the hearing "will examine the value of an impeachment inquiry," and will present all evidence to date uncovered by the committee in its investigation into the Biden family finances.
"Since January, House Committees on Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary, and Ways and Means have uncovered an overwhelming amount of evidence showing President Joe Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain," Comer said in a statement.
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U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a rally hosted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at Richard Montgomery High School on August 25, 2022, in Rockville, Maryland. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
"Thousands of pages of financial records, emails, texts, testimony from credible IRS whistleblowers, and a transcribed interview with Biden family business associate Devon Archer all reveal that Joe Biden allowed his family to sell him as ‘the brand’ around the world to enrich the Biden family," he said.
Comer's statement said that Congress had a duty to open the impeachment inquiry into Biden's alleged corruption, and that Americans "demand and deserve answers, transparency, and accountability for this abuse of public office."
"This week, the House Oversight Committee will present evidence uncovered to date and hear from legal and financial experts about crimes the Bidens may have committed as they brought in millions at the expense of U.S. interests," he added.
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Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., arrives for the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing titled "Unsuitable Litigation: Oversight of Third-Party Litigation Funding" in Rayburn Building on Wednesday, September 13, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The witnesses who will testify at the hearing include Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant with decades of experience in financial investigations and consulting, and who the committee says has testified in over 80 trials, including trials that involved financial fraud.
Former Assistant Attorney General Eileen O'Connor, who served in the U.S. Department of Justice Tax Division, and law professor Jonathan Turley, who testified in the Clinton and Trump impeachments, will also testify.
Last week, the Biden administration blasted House Republicans for planning to hold the hearing just days before the government runs out of funding, while dismissing the "evidence-free" probe as a "political stunt." Congress is currently negotiating a continuing resolution to extend the current year’s funding, but without passing a deal by Sept. 30, they risk sending the government into a partial shutdown.
Legal scholar and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley. (Fox News)
"Extreme House Republicans are already telegraphing their plans to try to distract from their own chaotic inability to govern and the impact of it on the country," White House spokesperson Ian Sams told Fox News Digital.
"Staging a political stunt hearing in the waning days before they shut down the government reveals their true priorities: to them, baseless personal attacks on President Biden are more important than preventing a government shutdown and the pain it would inflict on American families," Sams said.
The hearing will be the first since House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., formalized an impeachment inquiry last week. McCarthy directed Comer and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, along with Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., to lead the investigation.
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However, the hearing won’t necessarily tread any new ground. It is expected to be a review of the existing evidence and explain the status of the inquiry, sources familiar said.
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