WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) today released the following statement after voting to strengthen the House’s investigative efforts into allegations of the President’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings.
“Last week a grand jury indicted Hunter Biden on nine federal charges related to his shady foreign business dealings. Congress has also received testimony that President Biden joined meetings with these foreign business partners. It is therefore prudent for Congress to investigate the President’s involvement in these dealings. Rather than cooperate with this investigation, the Biden administration has prevented the House from accessing relevant materials and cited the lack of a formalized impeachment inquiry as a reason for doing so. They have made this vote a necessary step towards the House being able to examine all the facts of this case.
“As this inquiry proceeds, however, Congress must not recapitulate the mistakes of the recent past and lower the bar for impeachment. As I said in 2019, a matter as grave as impeachment demands deliberation, seriousness, and reliance on hard evidence of a crime. On this matter, I agree with Jonathan Turley’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee earlier this year:
‘The fact that some of us believe that the threshold has been passed to warrant an impeachment inquiry does not mean that we would support an actual impeachment. This is a moment where members and citizens can stand together on the need to seek answers without pre-judging what that evidence may show. None of the offenses discussed above have been established and I hope that the evidence will fall considerably short of that mark. The impeachment of a president should never be a close question on the merits. The instant question is whether members will support the full review of the underlying allegations. The driving purpose of an inquiry should not be impeachment but the determination if such a radical measure is warranted. In adopting best practices in impeachment, members can restore this process to protect the ‘public trust’ not only invested in a president but in Congress by our Constitution.’“
