Republicans Haul In President's Brother For Impeachment Questioning

WASHINGTON ― President Joe Biden’s brother arrived on Capitol Hill for an interview with lawmakers on Wednesday as part of the Republican impeachment inquiry against the president.

James Biden worked with the president’s son, Hunter Biden, on business deals that Republicans have described as corrupt “influence peddling” implicating the president.

The president’s brother told lawmakers, however, that Joe Biden wasn’t involved at all.

“I have had a 50-year career in a variety of business ventures,” James Biden said in an opening statement. “Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest in those activities. None.”

Most other witnesses have similarly denied that Joe Biden had any role in his family’s private sector work. And a key allegation collapsed last week after the Justice Department announced an FBI informant had been indicted for lying about the president accepting bribes. Prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday that the informant, a U.S. citizen named Alexander Smirnov, claimed to have been in contact with Russian intelligence services.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which has led the inquiry, said that he hoped Republicans would simply call off the impeachment inquiry altogether.

“The whole impeachment inquiry has been built on the foundation of lies and conspiracy theories, propaganda and disinformation promoted by Russian intelligence agents,” Raskin said.

The core allegation against Joe Biden has been that, as vice president, he twisted U.S. foreign policy, urging the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor in order to benefit a Ukrainian gas company that employed his son. State Department officials have repeatedly said