Thursday’s House Judiciary Committee markup of articles of impeachment took an ugly turn when Florida Republican Matt Gaetz launched a personal attack on former vice president Joe Biden’s youngest son.

While introducing a proposed amendment to Democrats’ articles of impeachment – language that would have replaced a reference to the former VP in the first article with with that of his son Hunter and a reference to Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings – Mr Gaetz took it upon himself to read from a profile of the younger Mr Biden in the New Yorker magazine, containing graphic depictions of drug use by the former vice president’s youngest son.

After he finished reading the passage he’d chosen, Mr Gaetz continued to attack Mr Biden.

“I don’t want to make light of anybody’s substance abuse issues ... but it’s a little hard to believe that Burisma hired Hunter Biden to resolve their international disputes when he could not resolve his own dispute with Hertz...over leaving cocaine and a crack pipe in the car,” he said.

The reference to Hunter Biden’s drug use was a curious one for Mr Gaetz, who himself was arrested for driving under the influence in 2008, though the charges were later dropped.

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When he had finished speaking, Georgia Democrat Hank Johnson responded with an oblique reference to his colleague’s past legal troubles.

“The pot calling the kettle black is something we shouldn’t do,” said Mr Johnson.

“I don’t know what members have had issues with substance abuse, been busted with DUI … but if I did, I wouldn’t raise it against anyone in this committee, it’s not proper,” he added.

Following a pregnant pause in his remarks – during which Mr Gaetz declined to respond – Mr Johnson noted that his colleague’s “silence is deafening”.

The judiciary committee’s vice-chair, Mary Gay Scanlon, told The Independent that Mr Gaetz’s attack on Mr Biden was evidence of Republicans’ failure to find a legitimate defence for Mr Trump.

“When you have nothing to say in defence of your case you try to distract elsewhere, but it’s really astonishing how low Matt Gaetz is willing to go,” she said.

Mr Gaetz’s amendment was voted down along party lines.

Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, posited that Republicans’ tactics were turning ugly to distract the public from Mr Trump’s conduct.

“I’m getting the sense that the GOP strategy is to create such a sordid spectacle that people just turn their TVs off,” said Mr Raskin, who taught constitutional law at American University’s Washington College of Law before being elected to Congress.

“That’s a cynical strategy, to try to turn people off from public engagement just by virtue of misbehaviour in public.”

Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who is one of two Judiciary Committee members who participated in the impeachment investigation as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told The Independent that Mr Biden was not relevant to the impeachment inquiry at all and offered harsh words for his Republican colleagues.

“This is not about Hunter Biden, this is about what the president did,” he said. “Anyone who ignores what the president did is in denial and is abdicating their duty to protect our elections and our national security.”