The White House on Monday bashed House Republicans for being \u201cdesperate to distract\u201d from their economic agenda after Speaker Kevin McCarthy\u2002(R-Calif.) floated the idea of an impeachment inquiry into Attorney General Merrick Garland\u2002over the handling of investigations into Hunter Biden.
\u201cSpeaker McCarthy and the extreme House Republicans are proving they have no positive agenda to actually help the American people on the issues most important to them and their families,\u201d said Ian Sams, White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, in a statement first obtained by The Hill.
McCarthy said Sunday there may be a possible impeachment inquiry into Garland over alleged political bias and \u201cweaponization\u201d of the Department of Justice, with the push fueled by an IRS whistleblower\u2019s claims about tax crime investigations into President Biden\u2019s son.
\u201cIf the whistleblowers\u2019 allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland\u2019s weaponization of DOJ,\u201d McCarthy said in a tweet.
Sams argued that president and Cabinet officials are traversing the country this week to tout Biden\u2019s economic agenda, all while Republicans are focused on pushing out partisan stunts.
\u201cPerhaps Congressional Republicans are desperate to distract from their own plan to give even more tax cuts to the wealthy and big corporations and add more than $3 trillion to the deficit, but instead of pushing more partisan stunts intended only to get themselves attention on the far right, they should work with the President to actually put the middle class and working Americans first and expand the historic progress to lower costs, create jobs, boost U.S. manufacturing and small businesses, and make prescription drugs more affordable,\u201d he said.
The White House also argued Monday that impeaching Garland and the handling of investigations into the president\u2019s son is not a priority for American families.
\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that congressional Republicans want to continue to focus on an issue that Americans \u2014 that\u2019s not their priority,\u201d press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. \u201cWe would welcome congressional Republicans to join us on working on behalf of the American people.\u201d
McCarthy\u2019s interest in a Garland impeachment is a change in how the Speaker has handled calls from Republicans to impeach members of the Biden administration, and he has vowed any impeachment proceedings would not be political.
Last week, House Republicans released testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who were involved in investigating Hunter Biden\u2019s\u2002taxes, alleging prosecutors slow-walked the case against him.
That investigation led to the president\u2019s son reaching a deal to plead guilty to two counts of willful failure to pay income tax and an agreement relating to unlawful possession of a weapon last week.
President Biden and Garland have both defended the integrity of the Justice Department, and the president has stressed that the department acts independently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n