WASHINGTON (AFP) – United States (US) President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he was “not focused” on an impeachment inquiry announced a day earlier by Republican lawmakers, as his White House blasted “baseless” allegations of wrongdoing.
“I don’t know quite why, but they just knew they wanted to impeach me,” Biden said of the Republican effort.
“I get up every day… not focused on impeachment. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got to deal with the issues that affect the American people every single solitary day,” he told attendees at a private campaign fundraiser.
The 80-year-old Democrat’s brief remarks were his first public comments on the issue since House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in Congress, bowed to intense pressure from his party’s hard right and authorised the impeachment inquiry on Tuesday.
When asked about the investigation earlier on Wednesday, Biden’s spokeswoman had stronger words.
“They have spent all year investigating the president… and have turned up with no evidence, none, that he did anything wrong,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
“That’s because the president didn’t do anything wrong.”
Republican House members accuse Biden 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 – who himself was impeached twice by a Democratically controlled House but acquitted in the Senate – in next year’s presidential election.
Biden ignored impeachment questions from reporters at the White House on Wednesday as he led 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.
