TRANSCRIPT
"I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. This logical next step will give our committees the full power to gather all the facts and answers for the American public."
That's US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, calling for an impeachment inquiry.
Congressional Reporter for the Associated Press Farnoush Amiri explains what that means.
"An impeachment inquiry kicks off a formal investigation into any potential wrongdoing by a federal official, and it is the most powerful check that Congress has on the executive branch."
The investigation is therefore the first step in the whole impeachment process.
If Republicans decide there is enough evidence of wrongdoing and abuse of power by Biden to move forward after the investigation, the Judiciary Committee would then mark up articles of impeachment.
These would need to be approved by a committee's majority vote, and then come to the House floor - where another majority vote would be required to impeach.
The impeachment charges next move on to the Senate for trial.
The trial is similar to what's seen in the legal system, with the senators acting as jurors, select House members acting as prosecutors, or impeachment managers, and the chief justice of the Supreme Court presiding over the whole process.
If the Senate approves an article of impeachment with a two-thirds vote of “guilty,” the president is convicted and removed from office.
If all the articles are rejected, the president is acquitted.
Impeachment is meant to be on the basis of high crimes and misdemeanours - and only three other presidents have ever been impeached: Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Trump, who was impeached twice.**
So why call for an impeachment inquiry?
The Speaker alleges Joe Biden profited while he served as vice president from 2009 to 2017 from his son Hunter's foreign business ventures.
"House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden's conduct. Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption. Now, here's what we know so far. Through our investigations, we have found that President Biden did lie to the American people about his own knowledge of his family's foreign business dealings... Biden used his official office to coordinate with Hunter Biden's business partners about Hunter's role in Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company."
Democrats say that's ridiculous.
They say the Justice Department investigated claims relating to the Biden's connections to Burisma when Trump was in the White House, and closed the matter after eight months finding insufficient evidence to pursue it further.
For House Minority Leader Hakeen Jeffries, there is no way this impeachment inquiry is based on real and legitimate concerns.
"That's a kangaroo court, fishing expedition and conspiracy theatre rolled into one. There is not a shred of evidence that President Biden has engaged in wrongdoing... It's a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."
Some Republicans have also panned the effort as unwarranted, not seeing evidence that reaches the Constitution's bar of high crimes and misdemeanors.
McCarthy is launching the inquiry on his own, without a House vote.
It's led to concerns that McCarthy is under pressure to appease his party's far right flank by pursuing Biden or risk his leadership.
Statements on the floor from Republicans like Matt Gaetz - who wants the Speaker to go after the Biden family even harder - have done little to quell those concerns.
"I rise today to serve notice. Mr Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role. The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate, total compliance or remove you pursuant to a motion to vacate the chair."
Professor Griffin says it's hard not to conclude impeachment has evolved from being a rarity to becoming a political tool.
"Some of us are distressed about this because we thought the lesson of the Nixon impeachment that wasn't really adhered to in the Clinton impeachment was that really the level of seriousness of the allegations really has to be at a high level before you go forward. But now it looks like we're involved in a tit for tat situation where the parties feel that any effort against a president of their own has to be, in effect, paid back. There has to be payback."
But House Freedom Caucus Leader Republican Scott Parry of Pennsylvania, says this is not about political retribution.
"I think the impeachment inquiry is long overdue personally. I am on the Oversight Committee, and I think that every other citizen that had stacked up against him what the President had stacked up against him now would already be in court."
So what happens now?
Farnoush Amiri says it's hard to say how long it will take for the process to play out - but it does have the potential to dominate the public agenda and set up a clash between Congress and the White House ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
"McCarthy would need the full support of his conference to pass any impeachment articles, and then it would go to the Senate where it's controlled by Democrats who are unlikely to convict him or remove the leader of their party."
