By House Republican leaders expect to vote next week to formalize their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, they said Tuesday.
Even if the House were ultimately to vote to impeach Biden after an inquiry, the Democratic-controlled Senate would not vote to remove him from office. The real risk of a House impeachment is that it could distract the White House and put the president on defense ahead of an election year.
The chamber has “no choice” but to adopt the impeachment inquiry because the White House is “stonewalling” an investigation into the Biden family’s business activities, argued House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
“They’re refusing to turn over key witnesses to allow them to testify as they’ve been subpoenaed. They’re refusing to turn over thousands of documents for the National Archives,” Johnson said at a press conference.
By adopting the impeachment inquiry in a floor vote, Johnson said, Republican investigators will be “at the apex of our constitutional authority” when the White House inevitably challenges their subpoenas in court.
“This vote is not a vote to impeach President Biden. This is a vote to continue the inquiry of impeachment,” Johnson said.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told reporters after a weekly conference meeting Tuesday that they were looking at a vote sometime next week.
The White House has denounced the “irresponsible” subpoenas that were issued last month to the Democratic president’s family members and their business associates.
The subpoenas are “illegitimate,” the White House argues, since the House has not voted to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry.
“The Republican House Majority has so far refused to take” that step, wrote White House counsel Richard Sauber in a letter Friday to House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Johnson, who leads a slim majority in the House, said Saturday he believes Republicans can formalize the impeachment inquiry without Democratic votes.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in September directed the House to open the impeachment probe, claiming Biden profited from his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business affairs before he was president.
In response to the subpoena, Hunter Biden said he would be willing to testify publicly before Congress instead of behind closed doors. Comer rejected that offer.
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