Date Proposed for Joe Biden's Impeachment

House Republican Anna Paulina Luna predicted a vote on impeaching President Biden will take place "at the beginning of next year" during an appearance on Fox News.

In September, Kevin McCarthy, then Speaker of the House, announced Republicans were launching an impeachment inquiry into Biden, which could potentially set the stage for a full impeachment trial. McCarthy alleged Biden had overseen "a culture of corruption," with criticism focused on the business relationship between Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. The president has denied any wrongdoing, and has stated he "never talked business" with any of his son's associates.

McCarthy became the first Speaker in U.S. history to be voted out of office on October 3, and after three weeks of Republican turmoil, was replaced by Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson who vowed to continue the impeachment process, stating Biden's actions "looks and smells a lot like" bribery.

Luna, who was elected in November 2022 to represent Florida's 13th district in the House, was asked about the impeachment process on Wednesday by Fox News host Jesse Watters. Newsweek has reached out to the White House for comment by email.

She said: "I do believe that in my time in Congress, for the 118^th Congress, I will be taking a vote on impeachment and that's going to be against Joe Biden."

Watters asked, "When do you think the time frame for that's going to be?," to which Luna replied: "Well, I think Speaker Johnson is exactly equipped to lay that out but I'm thinking it's probably going to be at the beginning of next year."

The impeachment inquiry got off to a poor start for Republicans when their own witness, George Washington University legal scholar Professor Jonathan Turley, told the first hearing he didn't believe the standard of evidence required to impeach Biden had been met.

He said: "I have previously stated that, while I believe that an impeachment inquiry is warranted, I do not believe that the evidence currently meets the standard of a high crime and misdemeanor needed for an article of impeachment."

Despite this, James Comer, the Republican Oversight Committee Chair, insisted they had "mountains of evidence" against Biden.

He commented: "We know not only there were crimes, we know there are cover-ups. We have mountains of evidence and now we're ready to bring 'em in.

"We're in the downhill phase of this investigation now because we have so many documents and we can bring these people in for depositions or committee hearings, whichever they choose, and we can ask these questions with evidence."

If the House votes to adopt articles of impeachment against the president by a simple majority, an impeachment trial will be held in the Senate, overseen by the Supreme Court Chief Justice. Conviction requires a two thirds Senate majority, which Republicans are extremely likely to achieve given they are the minority party in the upper chamber.

Donald Trump was impeached twice during his presidency, in 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and again in 2021 over incitement to insurrection. In both cases, the two-thirds Senate threshold for conviction wasn't met, and Trump was acquitted.

Biden is frontrunner for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination, meaning the impeachment process could play a significant role in the upcoming White House campaign and distract from Trump's criminal charges. The former president has been charged with numerous offenses related to claims he orchestrated the payment of hush money to an adult film actress, mishandled classified documents and broke the law attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election result both across the U.S. and in the state of Georgia specifically. He has pled not guilty to all counts, and has said the cases against him are politically motivated.