WASHINGTON, United States – The US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to formalize an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, intensifying Republicans’ battle with Democrats ahead of the 2024 election. Biden himself called the move a “baseless” ploy.

Republicans, taking advantage of Biden’s son Hunter’s controversial international dealings, have not yet produced evidence of the president’s corruption, and the Democratic-led Senate would likely not convict him even if the investigation did lead to impeachment.

Regardless, the process guarantees Republicans a new, high-profile platform to attack Biden in his re-election campaign – and to distract from the federal criminal trials against his almost certain challenger Donald Trump.

The 221-212 vote was along strict party lines, with every Republican voting in favor and every Democrat voting against.

Conservatives are accusing Biden’s troubled son Hunter of influence peddling by effectively trading the family name in pay-to-play schemes in his business dealings in Ukraine and China.

The allegations against Hunter Biden relate to incidents that occurred before his father became president, and the White House stressed there was no wrongdoing.

Biden himself responded immediately after the vote, accusing Republicans of dragging their feet on key fronts like funding the government while also obsessing about scoring political points ahead of the election.

“Instead of doing anything to improve the lives of Americans, they are focused on attacking me with lies,” Biden said in a statement.

“Instead of doing the urgent work that needs to be done, they are wasting their time on this baseless political ploy that even Republicans in Congress admit is unsupported by facts.”

Republicans insist the work has value.

“While President Biden continues to block lawful congressional subpoenas, today’s vote by the full House of Representatives authorizing the investigation puts us in the best position to enforce these subpoenas in court,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson and other members the Republican leadership.

“The American people deserve answers,” they said in a joint statement. “This impeachment inquiry will help us find them.”

“ZERO EVIDENCE”

Hunter Biden, whose messy personal life and business dealings have become a magnet for right-wing conspiracy theories and media investigations, issued an angry statement in Washington.

“My father had no financial involvement in my business,” he said.

Hunter Biden, a Yale-educated lawyer and lobbyist turned artist whose life was marked by personal tragedy, alcoholism and crack cocaine addiction, spoke to reporters from Capitol Hill after refusing to participate in a closed hearing , which was run by Republicans right from the inside .

Spurred by Trump — who has been impeached twice, including for his attempts to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss to Biden — the Republican Party first began considering possible impeachment against Biden in early 2023. The hearings that led to the decision to hold the vote on Wednesday began at the end of September.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer charged Wednesday that the investigation so far “has shown how Joe Biden knew, participated in and benefited from his family around the world benefiting from the Biden name.”

But experts interviewed during the trial said there was no evidence to justify impeaching Biden.

And the Democrats say the Republicans are playing pure politics.

“There is no evidence that President Biden has committed any wrongdoing,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday.

The U.S. Constitution provides that Congress can remove a president for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Impeachment by the House, which is the political equivalent of a criminal indictment, would trigger a Senate trial in which the president would lose his job if convicted – an unlikely scenario for Biden given Democratic control of the chamber.

Although three US presidents have been impeached – Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Trump in 2019 and 2021 – none have ever been removed from office by the Senate.