House Speaker Kevin McCarthy accused President Joe Biden of a "culture of corruption" on Sunday, adding that the "natural step forward" would be an impeachment inquiry.
McCarthy, a California Republican, has previously told Fox News's Sean Hannity that Biden had not been truthful about his involvement with his son Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings.
His comments come after Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden's, testified in July before the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door meeting that the president's son put his father on speakerphone during business calls on multiple occasions. Archer previously served as a board member of Burisma Holdings, an energy company based in Ukraine, alongside Hunter Biden and also co-founded Rosemont Seneca Partners with him.
Last month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated that the president was "never in business with his son," but stopped short of answering whether he was put on speakerphone while his son conducted business.
"You've got to understand only because Republicans took the majority have we found out what President Biden told us when he was running for office is not true," McCarthy told Fox host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures. "We now found out as he was a sitting vice president [under former President Barack Obama], the family created 20 shell companies. They received 16 of 17 payments from Romania while he was vice president. We now found that the money would flow to nine family members."
McCarthy continued: "We also have a DOJ [Department of Justice] that tried to give a sweetheart deal to Hunter Biden and the judge said no. So, if you look at all the information, we've been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry."
Under an initial plea deal with federal prosecutors, Hunter Biden was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay his federal taxes on time in 2017 and 2018, while avoiding being prosecuted for a felony gun charge—illegally possessing a firearm as a drug user.
However, both sides said the bargain was off the table after U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, who is presiding over the case, questioned if the deal offered the president's son blanket immunity from prosecution in his plea dealings or only for his tax offenses. After the top prosecutor said it would not offer sweeping immunity, Biden's attorney declared the agreement "null and void."
The agreement had been widely criticized by Republicans, who called it a "sweetheart deal" offered to Biden only because he is the president's son.
Meanwhile, many Republicans have expressed interest in launching a formal impeachment inquiry against Biden
"The Speaker of the House is now talking impeachment. The Biden corruption has risen to a level that there is no other response that can possibly be leveled against it," Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, last month.
Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has also been in support of impeaching Biden since he first took office as she filed articles of impeachment against him early on in his presidency.
"Today, I delivered a floor speech explaining why our Republican-led House must move forward with an impeachment inquiry on Joe Biden for corruption and abuse of power," the GOP lawmaker wrote on X in late July. "It's time to IMPEACH Biden and EXPUNGE President Trump's impeachments!"
Political analyst and Dillard University professor Robert Collins told Newsweek on Sunday that Kevin McCarthy faces pressure from the more conservative wing of his party to launch a formal impeachment inquiry against the president.
"If pressure continues to build, it will become more likely that he will launch the inquiry. The challenge he has is that he understands that an impeachment in the House would not go anywhere, because the Democrats control the Senate," Collins said. "It would be impossible to get enough votes to convict. An impeachment inquiry, or even a full impeachment vote, only serves public relations and political campaign purposes. It would not hurt McCarthy politically in the short term because he's playing to his base, and his base is already rabidly anti-Biden."
Update 8/27/23, 3:15 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with the name of Maria Bartiromo's show, Sunday Morning Futures.
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