Politics|Joe Biden Will Back Impeachment if Trump Does Not Comply With Congress
Mr. Biden argued in a speech that if the president did not cooperate, he would “leave Congress, in my view, no choice but to initiate impeachment.”
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Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called on Tuesday for impeachment proceedings against President Trump if the president does not comply with congressional requests for information related to Ukraine and other investigations.
“Denying Congress information to which it is constitutionally entitled and obstructing its efforts to investigate actions is not the conduct of an American president,” Mr. Biden said in a brief speech in Wilmington, Del. “It is an abuse of power. It undermines our national security, it violates his oath of office, and it strikes at the heart of the responsibility a president has to put national interests ahead of personal interests.”
He called on Congress to demand that Mr. Trump provide a copy of a complaint made by a federal whistle-blower, and said that if the president refused to do so, impeachment would be the only remedy.
“That would be a tragedy,” Mr. Biden said, “but a tragedy of his own making.”
Several other presidential candidates, including Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California, have already called for impeachment. Ms. Warren has been particularly forceful, accusing Congress of shirking its constitutional responsibilities.
“After the Mueller report, Congress had a duty to begin impeachment,” Ms. Warren tweeted on Friday. “By failing to act, Congress is complicit in Trump’s latest attempt to solicit foreign interference to aid him in US elections. Do your constitutional duty and impeach the president.”
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During a news conference in Davenport, Iowa, on Tuesday, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont also called on the Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment inquiry.
“What the Congress must do is keep its eyes focused on the needs of the working people of this country as it goes forward with the impeachment inquiry and the likely impeachment of Donald Trump,” he said. “Enough is enough, and today I hope very much that the Judiciary Committee will go forward with an impeachment inquiry.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was expected to announce a formal impeachment inquiry in the House on Tuesday afternoon, a step she had long resisted. The recent reports that Mr. Trump had pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate Mr. Biden’s son Hunter and his financial dealings with a Ukrainian natural gas company were a breaking point, leading many previously reluctant Democrats to support impeachment proceedings.
Mr. Trump spoke to the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, by phone shortly after he froze military aid to the country, which is battling Russian-controlled separatists. Mr. Biden’s campaign has said his son did nothing wrong in Ukraine and has accused the president of abusing his power to extract a “political favor.”
At the United Nations on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump said he had held up the aid because other European countries had not paid enough to support Ukraine. He released the aid under pressure from Congress after the delay was publicly reported. On Tuesday afternoon, the president said he would release a transcript of his call with Mr. Zelensky.
Mr. Trump acknowledged on Sunday that he had discussed Mr. Biden in the phone call in July. But his administration is refusing to provide Congress with the full complaint a whistle-blower filed about Mr. Trump’s dealings with a foreign government.
Katie Glueck and Sydney Ember contributed reporting.
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Maggie Astor is a political reporter based in New York. Previously, she was a general assignment reporter and a copy editor for The Times and a reporter for The Record in New Jersey. @MaggieAstor
