Biden: Congress Will Have ‘No Choice’ But to Impeach Trump if He Stonewalls Ukraine Investigation

Joe Biden weighed in Tuesday on reports of President Trump’s impending impeachment over a fraught matter that involves both Biden’s family and the former vice president himself.

During a July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump repeatedly asked Zelensky to investigate Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, over allegations that the former vice president used his position to help a Ukrainian energy company avoid a corruption probe soon after Hunter was appointed to its board.

On Tuesday, Trump admitted that he temporarily withheld military aid from Ukraine that was intended to help the country ward off Russian aggression, prompting suspicion of a quid pro quo scheme in which Trump is said to have finally released the aid in exchange for the promise that Biden’s conduct would be investigated.

“Using its full constitutional authority, Congress in my view should demand the information it has a legal right to receive,” Biden said during a speech in Wilmington, Delaware. “If the president does not comply with such a request of the Congress, if he continues to obstruct Congress and flout the law, Donald Trump will leave Congress in my view no choice but to initiate impeachment. That would be a tragedy, but a tragedy of his own making.”

The Democratic presidential frontrunner emphasized that the allegations against Trump have not been proven but called the alleged behavior “not the conduct of an American president.”

“It’s an abuse of power,” Biden said.

“Every reputable publication” has looked at the charge against the former vice president and found it to be “baseless and untrue,” Biden argued.

“I can take the political attacks. They’ll come and they’ll go and in time they’ll soon be forgotten,” Biden said. “But if we allow a president to get away with shredding the United States Constitution, that will last forever.”

“This isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. It is a national issue. It is a security issue,” he added. “The president should stop stonewalling this investigation and all the other investigations into his alleged wrongdoing.”

As part of its cooperation, the administration should provide Congress with a copy of the formal complaint made by the whistleblower, Biden said.

Other contenders for the Democratic nomination were more forceful in their calls for immediate impeachment.

“Trump continues to commit crimes because he believes he’s above the law,” Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote in a tweet. “If Congress does nothing to respond, he’ll be right. We must begin impeachment proceedings—now.”