Utah voters: Biden impeachment inquiry political, but justified

The House Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is still moving forward despite the fact that GOP representatives don’t have a speaker after ousting Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the top spot.

Fox News reported that a House Oversight Committee spokesperson said the committee will continue reviewing records before taking action in the coming days.

American voters seem to have reacted to the impeachment inquiry with a shrug and a sigh — and Utah voters are no different.

A new poll shows a majority of Utahns think Biden, when he was the vice president, benefited from his son Hunter Biden’s foreign consulting work and support the impeachment inquiry, but a majority also think the Republican’s decision to launch the investigation was politically motivated.

There was also broad consensus that Hunter Biden profited off his father’s political office, according to the latest Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll.

On the question of whether they support the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden, the poll shows more than half of Utah voters, or 56%, say they support it, while 32% say they oppose the investigation and 12% said they don’t know.

Dan Jones & Associates surveyed 802 Utahn registered voters from Sept. 24 to Sept. 29, 2023. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.23 percentage points.

Is the impeachment inquiry against Biden politically motivated?

House Republicans have been investigating the president's son since they took control of the House earlier this year and held the first hearing for the impeachment inquiry into Biden over his family’s foreign business dealings a week ago.

At the impeachment hearing, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said President Biden lied at least 10 times about not speaking to his family about business.

Comer rejected Biden’s claim that there was an “absolute wall” between his personal and professional life: “Let’s be clear: there was no wall. The door was wide open to those who purchased what a business associate described as ‘The Biden Brand.’”

But the witnesses, who didn’t have firsthand knowledge about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, said at the hearing that the current evidence isn’t sufficient to support articles of impeachment.

Voters were also surveyed about whether or not they think the impeachment inquiry into Biden is politically motivated — and nearly 6 in 10, or 58%, said it is.

Meanwhile, nearly 31% said it isn’t political and 11% said they don’t know.

Among Democrat voters, almost 9 in 10 said the inquiry is politically motivated, while less than 1 in 10 said it isn’t or they don’t know.

Jason Perry, director of the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics, told the Deseret News the response from Republican voters is particularly interesting.

Almost 50% of GOP respondents said the inquiry is politically motivated, while 40% said it isn’t and 11% said they don’t know.

“It seems that by and large, among Utah Republicans — regardless of where you are on the Republican side of the political spectrum — there seems to be some kind of consensus that it probably is politically motivated,” he said.

Did Hunter Biden benefit from his dad’s position in office?

The impeachment inquiry stems in part from a Department of Justice investigation into the president’s son that started when President Biden was in the early weeks of his presidential campaign in 2020.

This investigation continued behind the scenes until June 2023, when Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and enter a deferment on a felony firearms charge, as Deseret News reported. This plea deal fell apart in August and he was subsequently charged with three firearm-related felony charges.

Meanwhile, a congressional investigation into Hunter Biden was launched earlier this year. In July, two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers testified to the House Oversight Committee, where they claimed, “The Justice Department provided preferential treatment, slow-walked the investigation, (and) did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts.”

Committee chairman Comer alleged the president used his position in public office for financial gains, with the involvement of his son, who made deals with Chinese and Ukrainian businessmen.

The latest poll also asked voters whether they think Hunter Biden profited from his father’s position in government.

Nearly 77% said they think he did reap benefits from his father’s position in office, while only 10% said he didn’t and 13% said they don’t know.

A large majority of Republicans, 86%, and 43% of Democrats said they believe Hunter Biden profited from his father’s position when President Biden was vice president.

Perry noted the large number of Democrats who said Hunter Biden did profit from his father's position, saying this finding was unexpected, as was the similarly sized number of Republicans who say the impeachment inquiry against the president is politically motivated.

These groups show there is a growing “consensus” on these issues that cut across party lines, he said.

Did Biden benefit from his son’s business dealings?

Voters were also asked if they think President Biden profited from his son’s business dealings while serving as vice president — and 55% said yes, they believe he did, while 26% said they don’t think the president profited and 19% said they don’t know.

“The Utah perspective on these is, something seems not quite right — and that is not just a Republican perspective, but it’s also a Democrat perspective on these questions, which means that Utahns are not purely running these questions through a political filter,” Perry said. “It’s more nuanced than that.”