House GOP moves toward formalising impeachment probe of Joe Biden
Republicans could vote as soon as this week to bolster an investigation already under way into the business dealings of the president’s family.
House Republican leaders are moving toward a vote on formalising an impeachment probe into President Biden, aiming to bolster an investigation that some in the party are still wary of pushing forward too quickly.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and committee chairmen made a case to rank-and-file lawmakers on Friday, with a vote possible as soon as this week. House Republicans have already spent months trying to tie Biden to his family members’ overseas business dealings and gather support for their claims—which he denies—that he benefited from them. They so far have failed to deliver evidence backing up their most strident claims about the president.
“The sooner the better,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said about a vote to formalise impeachment proceedings, “so that some of the obstruction by the Biden administration can be overcome quickly.”
White House spokesman Ian Sams said in a recent memo that Republicans had “failed to turn up any evidence of wrongdoing” and “now appear to be trying to invent claims of ‘obstruction’ and ‘stonewalling’ to rationalise their illegitimate so-called ‘impeachment inquiry.’”
Most House Republicans appear to be on board with the idea of formalising the probe, though some are wary of moving forward too aggressively. With no Democrats on board, the vote is expected to be tight. House Republicans can lose no more than three GOP votes and still be assured of passing the impeachment resolution after the House voted Friday to expel Rep. George Santos (R., N.Y.), leaving Republicans with an even narrower majority of 221-213.
Impeachment investigations give Congress additional powers. They improve the likelihood that a court would authorise access to grand jury materials and boost the chances of overcoming assertions such as executive privilege, according to a 2019 report by the Congressional Research Service. While there is disagreement over whether a formal House vote is needed to authorise an impeachment probe, such a move helps remove legal ambiguity.
The White House this past week challenged House subpoenas and demands for transcribed interviews with Biden family members on the grounds that the existing impeachment probe wasn’t valid because the House didn’t vote to authorise it.
As of Friday, House Republicans had yet to draft a resolution authorising impeachment proceedings, but they have recently escalated their confrontation with Biden. In November, a key committee issued subpoenas to the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and brother James Biden, demanding they appear for closed-door testimony in December. A lawyer for Hunter Biden said the president’s son was willing to testify before the House in public, so that GOP lawmakers couldn’t selectively leak portions of closed-door remarks.
As House speaker earlier this year, Rep. Kevin McCarthy resisted a vote to authorise impeachment proceedings amid reluctance from Republicans in swing districts.
A focal point for House Republicans has been two transactions involving James and Joe Biden in the years immediately following Joe Biden’s vice presidency, which House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) has portrayed as evidence that China laundered money to Biden through his brother. In one, James Biden wrote a $200,000 check to Joe Biden in 2018 for a “loan repayment.” A year earlier, Sara Biden, James Biden’s wife, wrote a $40,000 check to Joe Biden with “loan repayment” similarly written in the memo field.
Democrats have pointed to earlier wire transfers to James Biden in the same amounts as evidence that Joe Biden lent his brother money and was then paid back.
A lawyer for James Biden, Paul J. Fishman, has previously said that Republicans misrepresented the transactions. “There is nothing more to those transactions, and there is nothing wrong with them,” Fishman said. “And Jim Biden has never involved his brother in his business dealings.”
A step to authorise formal impeachment proceedings would show how far House Republican leaders have moved since early this year, when then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) resisted scheduling such a vote amid reluctance from moderates in competitive districts hoping to keep their seats in 2024.
Instead, McCarthy said that he was directing the House Oversight Committee, in tandem with a pair of other committees, to open an impeachment inquiry, skipping a House vote and sparing the GOP from an embarrassing loss due to defections by some of the 18 Republicans from districts that Biden won a tough vote.
Now, some swing-district Republicans say that they could vote to formally authorise an impeachment inquiry, citing the White House pushback.
“They’re compelling us to do something formal on the House floor,” said Rep. Mike Garcia (R., Calif.), one of the 18 Republicans who represent a district Biden won in 2020. “So I think that’s the next logical step.”
Still, House Republican leaders have acted with caution and haven’t formally scheduled a vote, given the need to keep nearly all Republicans unified. “I’m going to continue to digest information,” said Rep. Marc Molinaro (R., N.Y.), also from a Biden district, about whether he would vote to authorise an inquiry.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R., N.Y.) said that “before I say I’m supporting anything, I’d like to read exactly what the inquiry is going to be about.”
Four years ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) faced similar challenges, initially resisting a formal vote to authorise impeachment proceedings against President Trump on the advice of legal scholars that it wasn’t required by the Constitution. The Trump administration responded by blocking witnesses from testifying and refusing to co-operate with subpoenas, so she then brought to the floor a resolution formally beginning impeachment proceedings.
Seven weeks later, the House voted to impeach Trump on abuse-of-power and obstruction-of-justice charges, based on intensive investigative work done ahead of the initial vote. Trump was acquitted by the Senate.
This time, House Republicans haven’t covered as much ground. In September, Jonathan Turley, a conservative law professor whom Republicans have looked to as a legal authority, said he didn’t believe the evidence currently supported an article of impeachment against Biden but that the House had passed the threshold for opening an impeachment inquiry.
Some moderate Republicans who are ready to vote for an impeachment inquiry now may be more hesitant to back actually impeaching Biden, if it comes to that, raising the question of whether it makes sense for the GOP to push forward anyway.
“If you’re going to show a gun in Act One, someone better be using it by Act Three,” said Yale Law School professor Akhil Amar, who specialises in constitutional law and criminal procedure. “Unless you’re going to use it, why are you talking about an impeachment when there doesn’t seem to be the need to ratchet it to that level?”
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