Berliner Tageblatt - Biden did nothing wrong, W.House says on impeachment probe

While the 80-year-old Democrat remained silent when asked by reporters about the probe, his spokeswoman pushed back against the investigation by his political foes.

"They have spent all year investigating the president... and have turned up with no evidence, none, that he did anything wrong," Biden's Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

"That's because the president didn't do anything wrong."

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy bowed to intense pressure from his party's hard right and authorized the launch on Tuesday of an impeachment investigation.

Republican House members accuse Biden, a Democrat, of having "lied" to the American people about his son Hunter's controversial business dealings abroad.

But Jean-Pierre said Republicans did not even have enough support for a vote in the House to approve an impeachment probe.

"Even House Republicans have said the evidence does not exist," she said. "This is a political stunt."

The probe comes as Biden faces low poll ratings ahead of a likely rematch with former president Donald Trump in next year's presidential election.

Biden ignored impeachment questions from reporters at the White House while leading a meeting of his "Cancer Cabinet" which aims to eradicate the disease, part of a recent effort by the administration to put the focus back on his domestic agenda.

- 'Good things' -

Cancer is personal for Biden, whose eldest son Beau died from brain cancer aged 46 in 2015. Biden had a cancerous skin lesion removed in February while doctors removed two from First Lady Jill Biden a month before.

Biden has stood resolutely by his sole surviving son, Hunter, 53.

The younger Biden's business dealings in Ukraine and China while his father was vice president under Barack Obama have been a constant target of Republicans.

Hunter Biden, a recovering drug addict, is currently under investigation by a Justice Department special counsel for possible tax evasion and is expected to be charged by the end of this month on a firearms violation.

However, he has not been charged with crimes related to his foreign business dealings, and no credible evidence has emerged so far that the president was involved in anything illegal.

The probe however threatens to distract the White House and give Republicans fresh material for attacks ahead of the November 2024 election.

Biden holds a slim one-percent lead over Trump -- 47 percent to 46 -- in a hypothetical match-up, according to a new national poll by Quinnipiac University.

Half of voters thought Joe Biden was involved in Hunter's business dealings with China and Ukraine, while 35 percent thought the president did something illegal, the poll found.

J.Fankhauser--BTB