{"id":17441,"date":"2023-09-04T03:49:58","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T08:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=17441"},"modified":"2023-09-04T03:50:01","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T08:50:01","slug":"house-gop-nears-joe-biden-impeachment-inquiry-as-mccarthy-plans-september-push-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=17441","title":{"rendered":"House GOP nears Joe Biden impeachment inquiry as McCarthy plans September push"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON – When lawmakers return to Capitol Hill after a summer break, one of\u00a0the first orders of business\u00a0among House Republicans could be\u00a0pursuing an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.,\u00a0who has sought to tamp down talks of impeaching the president, gave his strongest indication Sunday he will pursue at least the first step in the impeachment process, calling it \u201ca natural step forward.\u201d
The move to launch an impeachment inquiry\u00a0comes amid allegations\u00a0from Republicans on the House Oversight Committee that Biden\u2019s involvement in his family\u2019s business dealings were potentially improper or a threat to national security.
\u201cIt is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry,\u201d McCarthy said on Fox News\u2019 \u201cSunday Morning Futures.\u201d An inquiry, McCarthy said, would provide \u201cCongress the apex of legal power to get all the information they need.\u201d
The White House has\u00a0denied Republicans’ allegations and called it baseless innuendo.
Conservative lawmakers\u00a0have been clamoring to begin impeachment proceedings\u00a0against Biden since Republicans took control of the House in January.\u00a0
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who introduced a\u00a0resolution to impeach Biden\u00a0when he took office in 2021, said in an interview Tuesday she is ready for the party to launch the inquiry.
\u201cI\u2019m ready for the rest of the Republican conference to get together,\u201d Greene told\u00a0conservative news site Real America\u2019s Voice News. \u201cWe need to vote for this impeachment inquiry and move on with it.”
Moderate House Republicans have been playing it cool\u00a0with an impeachment inquiry,\u00a0saying they would rather not rush into things considering the House Oversight Committee and House Judiciary Committee\u00a0have already been investigating the White House.
\u201cI wholeheartedly embrace investigating and seeing if there was wrongdoing and there sure is a lot of smoke. I just don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a lot of fire when it comes to Joe Biden himself,\u201d Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told USA TODAY in an interview.\u00a0
Bacon said he wasn\u2019t opposed to an impeachment inquiry, but a yes vote from him would require \u201cevidence of a clear high crime or misdemeanor,\u201d or a refusal from the White House\u00a0to cooperate with House Republicans\u2019 investigations.\u00a0
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of anger out there and my own view is I thought that Democrats mishandled both impeachments,\u201d Bacon added, referring to former President Donald Trump\u2019s impeachments. \u201cPeople want revenge but that\u2019s not right. That\u2019s not the way our country has been done.\u201d
Republicans are already in danger of losing control of the House after they took control of it from the Democrats in the midterm elections\u00a0last year with a narrow margin.\u00a0
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.,\u00a0who has tried to pivot her party to the center, warned that impeachment could put vulnerable House Republicans in a tight spot ahead of the 2024 elections and force them to \u201cwalk the plank” on what could be an unpopular move and risk losing their seat, costing the House GOP majority.
\u201cEvery time we walk the plank we are putting moderate members, members that won Biden districts, we are putting those seats at risk for 2024,” Mace said on Fox News Sunday. \u201dWe are putting the majority at risk.\u201d
An impeachment inquiry could have mixed impact, Kevin Wagner, a political science professor at Florida Atlantic University, told USA TODAY.\u00a0 It will likely rally the GOP base and may increase partisan turnout, but it can also alienate moderate independents and Democrats, he said.
\u201cIt will hurt Republicans running in more moderate districts and maximize votes in areas that they are already likely to win,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cCrossover votes are important in the general election and the inquiry is likely to hurt efforts to broaden the base, especially in battleground states.\u201d
Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., chair of the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of House Republicans, told reporters in July that an impeachment inquiry would be done with \u201coverwhelming consensus.\u201d
As the basis for the impeachment inquiry, the House Oversight Committee has repeatedly alleged that Joe Biden knew about his son Hunter Biden\u2019s business dealings and engaged in influence peddling with his family as vice president.
As the White House denies House Republicans’ allegations, pointing out they have yet to produce substantial proof, some GOP lawmakers agree they haven\u2019t seen any evidence yet to support the claim.
Last month, Devon Archer, Hunter Biden\u2019s former business associate,\u00a0testified before the House\u00a0that Hunter Biden put then Vice President Joe Biden on the phone with clients. But Archer said Joe Biden didn\u2019t talk business on those calls, he said, nor was he involved in Hunter\u2019s business dealings.
The committee also\u00a0released a new report in August\u00a0that identified millions of foreign payments to Hunter Biden and his associates, but failed to produce evidence that Joe Biden personally benefitted from the dealings.
\u201cRight now I think there\u2019s circumstantial evidence maybe,\u201d Bacon said, referring to the report. \u201cI just want to see clear evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor.\u201d
Even as moderate Republicans urge patience on an impeachment inquiry to allow ongoing investigations to continue, other GOP lawmakers\u00a0aren\u2019t backing down from their push to impeach the president.
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla.,\u00a0a member of the House Freedom Caucus and a lawmaker on the House Oversight Committee, told reporters in July he thinks there has been an argument laid out \u201cvery clearly for grounds of impeachment,\u201d accusing the president of \u201cpublic corruption\u201d and \u201cpay-for-play scandals.\u201d\u00a0
If House Republicans do open an impeachment probe into Biden, Bacon lamented what the impact would be.
\u201cBig picture: this isn\u2019t good for our country. We\u2019ve had two impeachments last president, we (might) have one this.\u201d Bacon said. \u201cI just don\u2019t like the direction we\u2019re going. Impeachment should be a very high bar.\u201d
usatoday<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON – When lawmakers return to Capitol Hill after a summer break, one of\u00a0the first orders of business\u00a0among House Republicans could be\u00a0pursuing an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden.House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.,\u00a0who has sought to tamp down talks of impeaching the president, gave his strongest indication Sunday he will pursue at least the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[21502,10151,10463,1345,21064,22110],"class_list":["post-17441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-house","tag-impeachment-inquiry","tag-joe-biden","tag-mccarthy","tag-republican","tag-september"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17443,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17441\/revisions\/17443"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}