Biden claims Republicans 'want to impeach' him to 'shut down the government'

 On Wednesday, President Biden responded for the first time to House Republicans' recently launched impeachment inquiry, according to The Hill.

At a campaign reception in McLean, Virginia, the president brushed off the formal inquiry and claimed that Republicans are trying to impeach him to "shut down the government."

"Well, I tell you what, I don't know quite why, but they just knew they wanted to impeach me. Now, best I can tell they want to impeach me because they want to shut down the government," Biden stated. "Everybody always asked about impeachment. I get up every day not focused on impeachment, I've got a job to do. I've got to deal with issues that affect the American people every single solitary day."

Biden said that Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has wanted to remove him from office since the first day of his presidency.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R) launched a formal impeachment inquiry into the president on Tuesday, following the Oversight Committee's investigation into the Biden family's foreign business dealings. 

McCarthy stated, "Eyewitnesses have testified that the president joined on multiple phone calls and had multiple interactions. Dinners resulted in cars and millions of dollars into his sons and his son's business partners." 

The speaker noted that the evidence uncovered by the Oversight Committee will "warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives."

On Tuesday, CNN reported that the Biden administration was planning to send a letter to several corporate media outlets urging them to "ramp up … scrutiny" of House Republicans' impeachment inquiry.

A draft letter written by White House spokesperson Ian Sams and obtained by CNN read, "It's time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies."

"Covering impeachment as a process story – Republicans say X, but the White House says Y – is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable," Sams continued. "And in the modern media environment, where every day liars and hucksters peddle disinformation and lies everywhere from Facebook to Fox, process stories that fail to unpack the illegitimacy of the claims on which House Republicans are basing all their actions only serve to generate confusion, put false premises in people's feeds, and obscure the truth."

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday that the Oversight Committee's investigation failed to turn up any evidence against Biden.

"That is what we heard over and over again, from their almost yearlong investigation, and that's because the president didn't do anything wrong. Even House Republicans have said the evidence does not exist," she claimed.

When asked about the letter the White House planned to send to various media outlets, Jean-Pierre responded, "It just laid out really kind of specifically as to how we see this process has moved forward, how there is no evidence."

"I actually think that memo lays out pretty, in pretty good detail of why we felt it was important to put that out," the press secretary added.

The White House maintains that the president was not involved with his son Hunter's business dealings.