On Sept. 28, the first hearing in House Republicans’ impeachment question President Biden presented their best witnesses testifying that they lacked proof that he committed impeachable offenses, multiple procedural fights the G.O.P. The majority nearly lost nearly a dozen empty Republican seats.
“If the Republicans had a smoking gun or even a dripping water pistol, they would be presenting it today,” Maryland Representative and top Democrat on the Oversight Committee Jamie Raskin said. “But they’ve got nothing on Joe Biden.”
Top House Republicans are trying to see potential impeachment charges of bribery and abuse of power against Mr. Biden, and they have released more than 700 pages from the confidential tax investigation into his son Hunter Biden. But the G.O.P. has struggled so far to link Hunter Biden’s business activity to his father. Despite their review of more than 12,000 pages of bank records and 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports, none of the evidence released so far shows any payment to the president.
Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Oversight Committee said his investigators would continue to search for more evidence against Joe Biden. As the hearing ended, Mr. Comer said he was authorizing decrees for the personal bank records of Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president’s brother, and their affiliated companies.
For now, though, even some witnesses House Republicans handpicked to testify on Thursday conceded that lawmakers had not accumulated the evidence needed to support an impeachment charge.
“I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud, or any wrongdoing,” forensic accountant Bruce G. Dubinsky said. “In my opinion, more information needs to be gathered and assessed before I would make such an assessment.”
But even as the hearing was underway, some Republicans privately fretted that Comer did not appear in control of the proceedings and had undercut his own narrative by calling witnesses who did not fully support it. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly criticizing colleagues, one senior House Republican aide called the session disastrous.
Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, had his staff drop off a case of Bud Light for the Republicans, sarcastically congratulating them “as they embark on their historic impeachment journey.”
The White House blasted out emails every hour arguing that Republicans were trying to distract the public as Congress lurched toward a government shutdown.
“The consequences for the American people will be very damaging — from lost jobs to troops working without pay to jeopardizing important efforts to fight fentanyl, deliver disaster relief, provide food assistance, and more,” White House spokeswoman Sharon Yang said. “Nothing can distract from that.”
