Joe Biden used his influence to make money for his family and tried to hide it, claimed Republicans in the first hearing of their impeachment inquiry.
James Comer, the Oversight Committee chairman, said there was “a mountain of evidence” showing he “abused his public office for his family’s financial gain”.
“This is a tale as old as time,” added another Republican, Jim Jordan.
“Politician takes action that makes money for his family and then he tries to conceal it.”
Despite the claims, nothing has proven that Mr Biden abused his position during his eight years as vice president.
The White House has said the impeachment investigation is baseless and politically motivated ahead of next year’s likely election showdown with Donald Trump.
A forensic accountant, a former Justice Department official and two law professors appeared at Thursday’s session – but nobody with direct knowledge of the allegations.
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Professor Jonathan Turley, an impeachment expert called by the Republicans, said the threshold for an inquiry had been passed but there was not enough to impeach.
“I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment,” Professor Turley said.
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Image: The House of Representatives Oversight Committee is conducting the inquiry
Forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky backed up that assessment.
Another law professor and Democrat witness, Michael Gerhardt, said the evidence wasn’t even sufficient for an inquiry.
“A fishing expedition is not a legitimate purpose,” he told the hearing.
Republicans claim Mr Biden and his family profited from policies he pursued between 2009 to 2017 and that son Hunter took advantage of his father’s name.
“Hunter Biden cashed in by arranging access to Joe Biden, the family brand,” Mr Comer told the hearing.
Central to the probe are allegations Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a top prosecutor to stop an investigation into Burisma, an energy firm his son was on the board of.
However, multiple foreign and US officials have said he was only pursuing official policy to fight corruption in pre-war Ukraine.
Image: Republican representative Jim Jordan alleged it was an age-old tale of corruption
It is also claimed the Justice Department interfered with a tax investigation into Hunter Biden – who is set to plead not guilty to a gun chargenext month and has struggled with drugs in the past.
Ahead of the hearing, Republicans released documents detailing money transfers from a Chinese businessman to Hunter Biden in 2019 – in which he put his father’s address on the form.
Republicans claimed it showed a definite link to the president.
Image: Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden in February 2023
A lawyer for Hunter Biden said the money was a loan and that he had put down his father’s address because it was on his driving licence and his only permanent residence at the time.
“Once again Rep Comer peddles lies to support a premise – some wrongdoing by Hunter Biden or his family – that evaporates in thin air the moment facts come out,” said lawyer Abbe Lowell.
‘No smoking gun’
“If Republicans had a smoking gun or even a dripping water pistol they would be presenting it today. But they’ve got nothing,” said Jamie Raskin, the hearing’s top Democrat.
It’s unclear if Republicans, who have a slim majority in the House of Representatives, would have enough votes at the end of the inquiry to move forward with the impeachment process.
Political theatre – but there’s a hole in the script
Impeachment isn’t what it used to be.
Once a political nuclear weapon deployed on matters of grave consequence, it’s now the water pistol they can’t put down.
It’s the new politics on Capitol Hill, and its pursuit of Joe Biden paints the picture of a then vice-president abusing the powers of office – of using his position and influence to support his son’s business ventures in an effort to fill the family coffers.
As allegations, they reek of corruption. They would reek rather more if there was hard evidence behind them.
But in this act of political theatre, that’s the hole in the script.
There has been no paper trail produced, no recording, no first-hand eyewitness testimony that makes the link between dodgy business dealings and active participation by Joe Biden.
It is a shaky platform on which to build a case for impeachment. But, of course, this process of impeachment is about more than impeachment itself. It’s politics.
This hearing, and those to follow, lend traction to discussion around Biden and the whiff of corruption.
To some degree, it orientates the public gaze away from the legal travails of Donald Trump – creates an equivalence, false or not, between his behaviour and that of Joe Biden.
That will suit Republicans in the run-up to November 2024 – it doesn’t take a cynic to see a campaign strategy.
Even if the vote did go their way, it’s extremely unlikely the Senate – where Democrats hold a majority – would vote to remove Mr Biden from power.
Donald Trump was impeached twice during his presidency – one of them for allegedly allegedly pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden ahead of the 2020 election.
He was acquitted both times by the Senate.
The impeachment hearing comes as House Republicans face off against Democrats over government funding for the fiscal year starting on 1 October.
Large parts of the government will shut down if they cannot agree.
Democrat Jamie Raskin scolded the panel: “We’re 62 hours away from shutting down the government of the United States of America and Republicans are launching an impeachment drive, based on a long debunked and discredited lie.”
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
Image: The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
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Worst one-day losses since COVID
As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
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5:07
The latest numbers on tariffs
‘Trust in President Trump’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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3:27
How is the world reacting to Trump’s tariffs?
Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”
Tanking stock markets, collapsing world orders, devastating trade wars; economists with their hair ablaze are scrambling to keep up.
But as we try to make sense of Donald Trumps’s tariff tsunami, economic theory only goes so far. In the end this surely is about something more primal.
Power.
Understanding that may be crucial to how the world responds.
Yes, economics helps explain the impact. The world’s economy has after all shifted on its axis, the way it’s been run for decades turned on its head.
Instead of driving world trade, America is creating a trade war. We will all feel the impact.
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0:58
PM will ‘fight’ for deal with US
Donald Trump says he is settling scores, righting wrongs. America has been raped, looted and pillaged by the world trading system.
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But don’t be distracted by the hyperbole – and if you think this is about economics alone, you may be missing the point.
Above all, tariffs give Donald Trump power. They strike fear into allies and enemies, from governments to corporations.
This is a president who runs his presidency like a medieval emperor or mafia don.
It is one reason why since his election we have seen what one statesman called a conga line of sycophants make their way to the White House, from world leaders to titans of industry.
The conga line will grow longer as they now redouble their efforts hoping to special treatment from Trump’s tariffs. Sir Keir Starmer among them.
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President Trump’s using similar tactics at home, deploying presidential power to extract concessions and deter dissent in corporate America, academia and the US media. Those who offer favours are spared punishment.
His critics say he seeks a form power for the executive or presidential branch of government that the founding fathers deliberately sought to prevent.
Whether or not that is true, the same playbook of divide and rule through intimidation can now be applied internationally. Thanks to tariffs
Each country will seek exceptions but on Trump’s terms. Those who retaliate may meet escalation.
This is the unforgiving calculus for governments including our own plotting their next moves.
The temptation will be to give Trump whatever he wants to spare their economies, but there is a jeopardy that compounds the longer this goes on.
Image: Could America’s traditional allies turn to China? Pic: AP
Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister who coined the conga line comparison, put it this way: “Pretty much all the international leaders I have seen that have sucked up to Trump have been run over. The reality is if you suck up to bullies, whether it’s global affairs or in the playground, you just get more bullying.”
Trading partners may be able to mitigate the impact of these tariffs through negotiation, but that may only encourage this unorthodox president to demand ever more?
Ultimately the world will need a more reliable superpower than that.
In the hands of such a president, America cannot be counted on.
When it comes to security, stability and prosperity, allies will need to fend for themselves.
And they will need new friends. If Washington can’t be relied on, Beijing beckons.
America First will, more and more, mean America on its own.
Actors, directors and celebrity friends have paid tribute to Val Kilmer, after he died aged 65.
The California-born star of Top Gun, Batman and Heat died of pneumonia on Tuesday night in Los Angeles, his daughter Mercedes told the Associated Press.
She said Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 but later recovered.
Tributes flooded in after reports broke of the actor’s death, with No Country For Old Men star Josh Brolin among the first to share their memories.
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2:49
Watch: Val Kilmer in his most iconic roles
He wrote on Instagram: “See ya, pal. I’m going to miss you. You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker. There’s not a lot left of those.
“I hope to see you up there in the heavens when I eventually get there. Until then, amazing memories, lovely thoughts.”
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Kyle Maclachlan, who co-starred with Kilmer in the 1991 biopic The Doors, wrote on social media: “You’ll always be my Jim. See you on the other side my friend.”
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Michael Mann, who directed Kilmer in 1995’s Heat, also paid tribute in a statement, saying: “I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character.
“After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”
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Heat co-star Danny Trejo also called Kilmer “a great actor, a wonderful person, and a dear friend of mine” on Instagram.
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Cher, who once dated the actor, said on X that “U Were Funny, crazy, pain in the ass, GREAT FRIEND… BRILLIANT as Mark Twain, BRAVE here during ur sickness”.
Lifelong friend and director of Twixt, Francis Ford Coppola said: “Val Kilmer was the most talented actor when in his High School, and that talent only grew greater throughout his life.
“He was a wonderful person to work with and a joy to know – I will always remember him.”
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The Top Gun account on X also said it was remembering Kilmer, who starred as Iceman in both the 1986 original and 2022 sequel, and “whose indelible cinematic mark spanned genres and generations”.
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