WASHINGTON, Dec 12 — The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives will vote on Thursday to formalise its impeachment inquiry of Democratic President Joe Biden, House Speaker Mike Johnson informed his fellow Republicans in a closed-door meeting, according to a Republican lawmaker who was present.

"He just told us that... Thursday,” Representative Lisa McClain told Reuters after existing a meeting with Johnson in the US Capitol.

The vote will occur on the day when House members are scheduled leave Washington for a year-end holiday break of more than three weeks.

House Republicans accuse the Democratic president and his family of improperly profiting from policy decisions Biden participated in as vice president during President Barack Obama’s 2009-2017 administration.

They have also accused the US Department of Justice of inappropriately interfering with an investigation into Biden’s businessman son Hunter Biden. The Justice Department denies wrongdoing.

Republican Representative Kelly Armstrong on Thursday introduced a 14-page resolution that would allow the full House to vote on authorising the probe.

House Republicans have so far failed to produce evidence tying Biden’s actions as vice president to his son’s businesses, and it is unlikely that the Senate, where Biden’s Democratic Party holds a slim majority, would vote to convict the president if the House did pass articles of impeachment.

Representative Byron Donalds, a Republican member of one of three committees investigating Biden, told Fox News on Sunday that he expects the inquiry to wrap up within the next two months and the House to draft articles of impeachment sometime in the spring. — Reuters