“Culture of Corruption” – Corriere.it

A week after Congress resumes after its summer recess, political Washington is back in motion, and as expected, Republicans are preparing to turn the year leading up to the November 2024 presidential election into a new year. Ordeal for Joe Biden at least Three fronts: withholding funds needed to enable the government to function, sabotaging new aid packages for Ukraine (but here the right is divided), and above all, Initiation of impeachment proceedings against the Democratic leader.

He is now talking openly about impeaching the president, which has already been aired in his summer interviews Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy: A fact-finding investigation conducted in recent months by the Republican-majority branch of Parliament allegedly revealed «“Culture of corruption for the Biden family”. So the “next logical step” for him is to put it to a vote An official investigation in the House of Representatives On the President who is to lead, according to the intentions of the applicants, an indictment and a trial, which will be held, in accordance with the Constitution, before the Senate which becomes a judicial body.

Biden will not be convicted, just as Trump will not be convicted In two of his impeachment procedures, because removing the president requires the votes of two-thirds of the members of the Senate. But Congress is already required to conduct a virtual impeachment of the president On a daily basis, he discusses his potential responsibilities regarding the crimes committed (and admitted to) by his son, Hunter That would be very damaging to Biden’s image It would serve to create a counterbalance to interest in the four trials (for the most serious crimes) that await Donald Trump in an election year. And also because Hunter will be prosecuted by the end of the month by Biden’s Justice Department: he, too, will stand trial next year.

McCarthy will likely raise the possibility of a vote in favor of Biden’s investigation as early as Thursday in a meeting with other House Republican leaders. And above all, the chairs of the Justice and Oversight Committees, Jim Jordan and James Comer: the most ardent in calling for the impeachment of the president, They are convinced they can prove that Biden, when he was Obama’s running mate, helped his son with his businesses in Ukraine and China.. They claim to have certificates linking the father to his son’s affairs. But, if it is true that in conversations with Hunter, the then Vice President often used pseudonyms and if his son, during a discussion with his clients, sometimes called him and put him on speakerphone to impress his interlocutors, it is also true that the witnesses who told all this added: They have no evidence to support that Joe Biden favored or benefited from his son’s business.

And for this The issue of impeachment is more complex than it seems, and is dividing the Republican Party itself: The far-right conservative who hates McCarthy and wants to remove him from House leadership suspects the Speaker of the House is calling for an impeachment that would end in a deadlock in order not to address the issue, which is far more thorny regarding federal public spending.

Trying to summarize a complex game: The far right is angry at McCarthy Who in the spring accepted (and voted) an agreement with the White House that, by increasing the public debt ceiling for two years in exchange for modest spending cuts, averted the risk of a default by the US Treasury for the duration of his presidency. Biden’s first term. Now they want to force him to retreat with the only tool left: Blocking draft appropriation laws and laws necessary to distribute budget funds to the various branches of government.

McCarthy does not want to contradict himself either, because by changing course, he will have to face other revolts on the part of Republicans who, like Democrats, do not want to cut public spending: just remember that in the last TV debate between the Republican candidates Nikki. Haley, who was ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, said that responsibility for the explosion of US public debt lies more with the former Republican president than with Democrats. Ken Buck, a leader of the Freedom Caucus, for example, claims that there is no clear evidence linking Hunter’s misdeeds to Joe Biden and suspects that McCarthy wants an impeachment vote only to tie it to the parallel vote. Who passes appropriations bills.

As expected, A chaotic pre-election season is shaping up with mud flying everywhere. With Democrats unable to question their president, they are under attack while even in the Republican House the rags will fly: not just the clash between Trump and the other candidates but also the division of the right in Congress on everything: from McCarthy’s leadership to Trump’s support. “Ukraine.”