Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, formally endorsed on Tuesday an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over his son's foreign business dealings.
“Through our investigations, we have found that President Biden did lie to American people about his own knowledge of his family's foreign business dealings,” Mr McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill.
“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption. They warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives.”
The inquiry will centre on Mr Biden's activity surrounding his son Hunter Biden's business dealings.
House-led Republican investigations have yet to provide any direct evidence that the President financially benefited from his son's business dealings.
Ian Sams, a White House spokesman for Oversight and Investigations, said on X, formerly Twitter, that the Republicans had no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr Biden and described the impeachment probe as “extreme politics at its worst”.
Mr McCarthy alleged on Tuesday that “Biden used his official office to co-ordinate with Hunter Biden's business partners about Hunter's role in [Ukrainian energy company] Burisma”.
Impeachment by the House, the political equivalent of a criminal indictment, would lead to a “trial” by the Senate's 100 members, who can vote to remove a president with a two-thirds majority vote.
Such an outcome, however, is highly unlikely.
Mr McCarthy has been under pressure from more conservative corners of his party to ramp up investigations into the Biden family. Republicans voted in June to begin the formalities that could lead to impeachment.
Members of Mr Biden's Democratic party have accused Republicans of deflecting attention from the mushrooming legal woes of former president Donald Trump, who himself faced two impeachments from a Democrat-controlled Congress.
Mr McCarthy said House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan and House Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith would lead the inquiry.
