Joe Biden won't have had an impeachment inquiry at the top of his Christmas list — but there's a chance it could be a gift for his hopes of winning a second term as US president.

The 81-year-old Democrat certainly faces an election-year headache after the Republican-led House of Representatives voted, just before its holiday break, to formalize a probe into whether he profited from his son Hunter's foreign business deals.

Biden's strategy for a counterattack is already clear — dismiss it as political theater, blame a vengeful House for blocking his political plans, and even raise funds for his likely rematch against Donald Trump.

"No president wants to be impeached," Todd Belt, a politics professor at George Washington University, told AFP.

But "as far as politically what this means, it hands a gift to Joe Biden."

The White House response minutes after Wednesday's vote "pivoted very quickly to the economy and to the fact that this Congress hasn't done very much and is obsessed with the politics of revenge for Donald Trump instead of doing the people's work," he added.

Political theater

So far Republicans have failed to provide evidence of corruption by the president. And even if Biden is eventually impeached by the House, any bid to remove him from office would almost certainly be dead in the water in the US Senate.

But House Republicans have pushed ahead with the inquiry knowing it provides a high-profile platform to attack Biden — and a useful distraction from the federal criminal trials facing Trump, who was himself impeached twice.

Trump is edging ahead of Biden in recent polls and has long egged on Republicans to impeach the man who beat him in the 2020 election — with or without evidence.

He complained on Thursday that he had "never had the luxury" of an inquiry before actual impeachment, adding that "Biden is lucky to only have an Inquiry, and he's guilty as hell!"

The Biden and Trump cases have even become a warped mirror image of each other. 

Where Trump has sold merchandise featuring his mugshot and dismissing criminal charges against him as a witch hunt, the Biden campaign cast the impeachment inquiry as  "political theater with bad actors" — in an email from Vice President Kamala Harris seeking donations of as little as $5.

It was the campaign's best-performing email of the week, US media reported.

Stunt

Biden has dismissed as "lies" and a "baseless political stunt" the Republican allegations that he profited from his son's business deals in Ukraine and China or that he facilitated deals for his son using his name.

But in 2024 he is likely to "sideline" the allegations and point instead to the chaos in the House, where funding for Ukraine is blocked and a government shutdown once again looms, said Belt.

"If this continues on throughout the election cycle, all the president has to do is just point up the (Capitol) Hill and say — 'Look up there what these people are doing,'" he added.

Hunter Biden — whose father has long stood by him through substance abuse and legal issues — meanwhile has taken on a new head-on strategy of his own after years of keeping a low profile. 

The 53-year-old, who faces federal gun and tax evasion charges, held a rare press conference on Wednesday to slam Republicans as "shameless."

But US news outlet Axios said Hunter's strategy had in fact "caused tension" with the White House, as it takes a more risk-averse approach.

Biden can meanwhile take comfort in the fact that the previous US presidential impeachments — Andrew Jackson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021 — all failed to remove the holder from office. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before he could be impeached.

Even so, the process is not without political risk.

Any attempt by the White House to cite executive privilege and hold back evidence or documents could give Republicans ammunition for claims that Biden has something to hide, Belt said.

Finally, there's always the possibility of a wild card.

"Sometimes things can come up in investigations. None of us know, right?" said Belt.