White House Tells Speaker Johnson It’s ‘Obviously Time to Move On’ from Biden Impeachment Inquiry

The White House on Friday urged Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) to end the House GOP’s impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, telling the Republican leader it’s “obviously time to move on” from the months-long probe.

In his very first letter to the speaker, White House counsel Edward Siskel argued that the Republican-led investigation has failed to uncover any substantial evidence related to the president’s involvement in his son’s foreign influence-peddling schemes.

“It is obviously time to move on, Mr. Speaker,” Siskel wrote in the four-page letter, reported by the New York Times. “This impeachment is over. There is too much important work to be done for the American people to continue wasting time on this charade.”

In response to the letter, Johnson’s office pushed back on the notion that the investigation has not yielded any evidence of wrongdoing, pointing out that the House Judiciary and Oversight committees have uncovered a vast network of shell companies linked to Biden family members that received payments from various overseas entities and individuals while Joe Biden was serving as vice president and soon after he left office. Witnesses called by House Republicans have also contradicted Biden’s repeated claims to have never discussed business dealings with his family members.

“It is not surprising that the White House would prefer to close the ongoing House inquiry which has uncovered that the Biden family and their associates received over $20 million from foreign sources, and that President Biden has lied repeatedly,” Johnson deputy chief of staff Raj Shah told National Review when asked for a statement in response to the letter. “The White House does not get to decide how impeachment gets resolved, that is for Congress to decide.”

The impeachment inquiry was dealt a blow last month after former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, a key witness for House Republicans, was indicted for making false statements alleging Biden and Hunter Biden each received a $5 million bribe from Ukrainian energy company Burisma. He now remains in jail while awaiting trial. Smirnov pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Siskel listed 20 witnesses, among them Hunter Biden’s former business associates, who refuted allegations that the president financially benefited from his son’s business dealings. The White House counsel, who labeled the inquiry a political stunt, claimed the combined witness testimony undermines Republicans’ allegations that the father-son duo’s receiving of payments constitutes bribery.

“None of the evidence has demonstrated that the president did anything wrong,” Siskel wrote. “In fact, it has shown the opposite of what House Republicans have claimed.”

House Republicans have compiled a trove of messages and financial documents that paint a picture of foreign-influence peddling by James and Hunter Biden. They’ve focused on one transaction in particular, in which Joe Biden received a check from his brother James Biden and sister-in-law Sara Biden immediately after they received a payment from Northern International Capital, a Chinese company affiliated with CEFC China Energy. James Biden testified that the check was issued as a loan repayment but did not elaborate as to the details of the loan, nor did he explain why the check was issued immediately after he received funds from a Chinese entity.

House Republicans have also honed in on Hunter Biden’s text messages with CEFC associate Raymond Zhao, including a message in which the president’s son demanded a $10 million payment, which was supposed to serve as seed capital for a nascent joint venture with CEFC, while claiming he was sitting next to his father. Zhao responded that “CEFC is willing to cooperate with the family,” after which $5 million was sent by Northern International Capital and several financial transactions were made to hide the source of the Chinese-laundered money.

Hunter testified that he was likely intoxicated when he sent the text and denied that his father was actually present when it was sent.

The White House letter comes three days after former special counsel Robert Hur testified before the House Judiciary Committee on his own investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. Hur told Congress he decided not to prosecute Biden due to his failing memory, even though he had found that the incumbent president knowingly retained classified documents in his Delaware home and former office in Washington, D.C.

On Wednesday, Johnson said the investigation needs to continue before the House can hold a vote on articles of impeachment against Biden.

“The impeachment inquiry and the investigation that accompanies that will continue,” he told reporters at the House GOP retreat in West Virginia. “There is still bits of information that have been requested that have not yet been turned over, and our committees will continue to do that work. And they will process all of that and make those decisions as they come forward.”

Later in the day, Johnson said that once the Republican committees investigating the president gather more information, “we’ll carefully evaluate that and make a decision as a body, as a leadership team, about where we proceed from there.”

In December, the full House voted along party lines to formalize Biden’s impeachment inquiry. Three months before that, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.), who resigned from Congress at the end of last year, first authorized the inquiry.