Speaker Johnson Expects Decision On Biden Impeachment Articles ‘Very Soon’

The speaker praised House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) for their investigative leadership, contending that they had done “an extraordinary job, very methodically,” and “outside the scope of politics.”

The Evidence

While Mr. Johnson has only been House speaker for a little more than a week, he’s presided over a flurry of activity as the chamber gets back to business.

One aspect of that business is the chamber’s continuance of its impeachment inquiry, which House Republicans opened on Sept. 12 amid allegations that President Biden was involved in a pay-to-play bribery scheme.

In the past week, Mr. Comer and his committee have uncovered two direct payments that President Biden received from his brother that they claim implicate him in an influence-peddling operation.

The first payment the panel discovered was a $200,000 check that the president received on March 1, 2018. The check, labeled as “loan repayment,” was written on the same day that James Biden, President Biden’s brother, received a $200,000 wire from Americore Health, a rural hospital operator.

According to court documents, Americore loaned James Biden $600,000 “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”

President Biden, who has repeatedly denied any involvement in his family members’ business affairs, has said that the $200,000 check was repayment for a personal loan.

The second payment, revealed by the committee on Oct. 31, was another “loan repayment” of $40,000 that President Biden received on Sept. 23, 2017.

According to a memo compiled by the committee, bank records and other documents suggest that the funds for that payment may have been sourced from a Chinese firm and funneled through multiple companies and accounts controlled by Biden family members.

Mr. Comer, who accused the president of receiving “laundered China money,” qualified the allegation by noting that it’s plausible that the $40,000 from James Biden was indeed a loan repayment, as noted in the memo section of the personal check.

“But even if this $40,000 check was a loan repayment from James Biden, it still shows how Joe benefited from his family cashing in on his name—with money from China no less,” Mr. Comer said.

But in a Nov. 1 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Mr. Comer said that the information that his committee had gathered was “evidence that Joe Biden himself benefited” from his family members’ foreign business dealings.

Mr. Johnson, who also took part in the interview, repeated that the House is “following the truth where it leads.”

“You hear the evidence, you hear this laid out and summarized—of course, you know there’s much more than what we’re able to do in one segment,” he said. “[But] we’re going to follow the truth where it leads because we have a constitutional responsibility to do so.”

Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.