On September 12, 2023, Kevin McCarthy, the then-Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, announced an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The inquiry will be conducted by the House's Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means committees. James Comer, chairman of the Oversight Committee, will lead the investigation.
Speaker McCarthy initiated the inquiry saying that recent House investigations "paint a picture of corruption" by Biden and his family. No congressional investigations have discovered any evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden himself. The first hearing of the impeachment inquiry was held on September 28, 2023.
Background
Since 2020, Republicans have advocated for investigations into the business dealings of Joe Biden's son, Hunter, who they alleged engaged in influence-peddling. They have sought to directly connect Hunter's financial affairs to Joe, and demonstrate that Joe benefited from Hunter's business dealings. A specific allegation that Joe sought to protect Hunter from a corruption investigation by arranging to have the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired has been repeatedly shown to be false. They have also accused the Department of Justice of interfering in a federal investigation into Hunter, which has been ongoing since 2018, to grant him preferential treatment. To that end, congressional Republicans have launched multiple committee investigations to look into these allegations, including the House Oversight Committee investigation into the Biden family. By the time of the impeachment inquiry, these investigations had not produced evidence of wrongdoing by the president. Over the course of the committee investigations, McCarthy alleged that the Biden administration engaged in "obstruction," although Oversight Committee chair James Comer said on Fox Business on June 29, 2023, that for every subpoena he had issued during his investigation, "we've gotten 100 percent of what we requested, whether it's with the FBI or with banks or with Treasury."
Former president Donald Trump, as well as several Republican members of the House of Representatives and Senate, have expressed a desire to retaliate against the impeachments of Trump by impeaching Biden. Following Joe Biden's inauguration, various Republican members of Congress have engaged in several efforts to impeach him. The first of these articles of impeachment was filed one day after Biden's inauguration by Marjorie Taylor Greene, citing the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory. In the 118th Congress, Republicans were able to hold a majority in the House of Representatives, comprising several members of the Freedom Caucus. Kevin McCarthy, leader of the House Republican Conference, was elected speaker of the House after several days and many votes as opposition—primarily led by members of the Freedom Caucus—mounted against him; as part of negotiations, McCarthy conceded to his opponents and faced pressure from Republican members to either impeach Biden or launch an impeachment inquiry against him. The Fiscal Responsibility Act, an act drafted to resolve the 2023 United States debt-ceiling crisis, weakened McCarthy's standing with members of the Freedom Caucus who opposed his negotiations with Biden.
In June 2023, the House of Representatives voted to begin an investigation into Biden's removal and referred two impeachment articles written by Lauren Boebert to committee. McCarthy privately told his members that he would consider impeachment if the Oversight Committee investigation produced sufficient evidence. Trump has privately and publicly encouraged impeaching Biden. On Truth Social, he lambasted Democrats for impeaching him amid the Trump–Ukraine scandal. Leading up to the inquiry, Trump met with House Republican Conference chair Elise Stefanik and Greene, discussing impeaching Biden both times. In September, McCarthy promised in an interview with Breitbart News that he would only open an impeachment inquiry into Biden with a full house vote.