5 things to know about Biden's impeachment inquiry

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Friday, December 15, 2023

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Monument Leaders Rally hosted by the South Dakota Republican Party on September 08, 2023, in Rapid City, South Dakota. | Scott Olson/Getty Images

The impeachment inquiry relates to the impeachment inquiry against Trump

Four years ago, Biden's predecessor, former President Donald Trump, was subject to an impeachment inquiry over a phone call he made in the summer of 2019 asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to look into claims that Biden "went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution" of Hunter Biden, the president's son.

Critics of the former president contended that the phone call amounted to a quid-pro-quo since Zelenskyy brought up his desire to receive aid from the U.S. in the conversation.

Trump critics maintained that the request constituted election interference as Biden declared his intention to run against Trump.

As outlined in the memorandum about the impeachment inquiry against President Biden, the younger Biden served on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Upon taking office in 2015, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin inherited an ongoing investigation into corruption at Burisma, specifically focusing on the company's president.

The memo contained an excerpt of Biden's remarks before the Council of Foreign Relations in 2018, where he talked about how he was dispatched to Ukraine by then-President Barack Obama to "announce that there was another billion dollar loan guarantee" to the Eastern European nation. The former vice president lamented that then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko vowed to "take action against the prosecutor" but "didn't."

Biden recalled telling Poroshenko, "If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money." He remarked that Shokin was fired shortly thereafter. The memo stated that the investigation into the Burisma president was dropped less than a year later.

The impeachment inquiry into Trump over his phone call with Zelenskyy asking him to investigate the aforementioned series of events resulted in impeachment proceedings launched in late 2019. The U.S. Republican-controlled Senate acquitted the former president on Feb. 5, 2020.