The speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, says the strategy of using an impeachment investigation of President Biden will give Republicans greater legal standing in the months ahead to demand documents, depose witnesses, and enforce subpoenas. The House on Wednesday passed a resolution officially authorizing the inquiry by 221–212 along strict party lines.

The urgency to adopt an inquiry authorization was compounded in recent weeks when Hunter Biden announced he would not comply with a subpoena from the Oversight Committee chairman, Congressman James Comer. The subpoena, issued in November, demanded he sit for a closed-door deposition with committee lawyers. 

On Wednesday, before the House adopted the inquiry authorization, Mr. Biden made a surprise appearance on Capitol Hill to reiterate that he would not appear for private questions but would be willing to appear in a public hearing before the Oversight Committee. He told reporters that the investigation was based on “distortions, manipulated evidence, and lies,”

Because of the now-sanctioned inquiry, Hunter Biden is at real risk of seeing the inside of a jail cell due to his noncompliance with the subpoena. Mr. Comer and the Judiciary Committee chairman, Congressman Jim Jordan, say they are prepared to hold him in contempt of Congress, which could lead to a prosecution by Department of Justice lawyers. 

Mr. Johnson previously announced that the inquiry had to be authorized in the wake of Mr. Biden’s defiance, saying that the House needed to be at the “apex” of its legal and Constitutional authority if it did push for a contempt resolution against the first son. 

One Republican on the Rules Committee, which drafted the inquiry authorization, Congressman Chip Roy, says the step is only meant to get around the “obstruction” from the White House. 

“We’re not here to litigate the merits of impeachment but simply to proceed with the process of an impeachment inquiry for this body — the House of Representatives — to be able to conduct its oversight function,” Mr. Roy said. “We have seen an extraordinary amount of stonewalling from this administration.”

Some of the moderates who ended up supporting the inquiry resolution say that they have yet to see evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors that would warrant an impeachment but still believe the inquiry itself is necessary so that the House can pursue the facts where they lead. 

One member who flipped a seat from blue to red last year and is now a top 2024 target for Democrats, Congresswoman Jen Kiggans, told CNN that “the American people deserve to know answers to questions, however, I really also believe that we need to continue to focus on the priorities that we had coming into this Congress.”

According to the Messenger’s Stephen Neukam, Congressman Don Bacon, who like Ms. Kiggans represents a district won by Mr. Biden in 2020, said that while the Biden family is “getting millions of dollars off the Biden name,” he added, “that’s not to say there was a crime by the president.” Congressman Dusty Johnson, who represents deep-red South Dakota, also said he has not seen any evidence that would warrant impeachment. 

The White House has argued in the past that because the House never voted to authorize an impeachment inquiry, the administration did not have to comply with certain document requests and subpoenas because, without an official inquiry, the requests were beyond Congress’ oversight powers. 

When Mr. Comer requested information from the administration related to Mr. Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, a White House special counsel, Richard Sauber, told him in a letter that without a House-approved inquiry resolution, the chairman’s requests amounted to nothing more than “Congressional harassment of the President to score political points.”