At Trump’s insistence, Republicans in the House of Representatives are embracing Biden’s impeachment inquiry
When the House votes Wednesday to approve an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, it will be the culmination of a slow but decisive political shift among Republicans — spurred by former President Donald J. Trump and his closest allies in Congress — from a position of tension. resist such exploration in order to fully embrace it.
The vote is both a next step and just a formality; Republicans have been pursuing an impeachment inquiry for months, a fact that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy made official when he announced in September that the investigation was launching without a vote in the House of Representatives.
But this week’s action follows a months-long effort by Republican leaders to shore up support among more than a dozen mainstream conservatives who have been skeptical about pushing ahead with impeachment amid an investigation that has so far produced no concrete evidence that the president has committed major crimes. or crimes.
They succeeded in part thanks to new, explosive allegations against the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and by making clear to their Republican colleagues that there is no harm in investigating whether the president may have played a role.
“I can now defend an investigation,” said Rep. Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, who represents a district won by Biden in 2020 and says he still opposes votes to impeach him. “Let’s see what they find out.”
With a slim margin in the House of Representatives, Republicans can only afford to lose a handful of votes if they bring up the investigative vote, and they face a challenge from some members who may be among the best known of the facts of belong to the case.
One ultraconservative member, Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, has written an op-ed essay denouncing the research as based on an ‘imagined story’.” Still others say they are still opposed to impeaching Mr. Biden given the lack of conclusive evidence, but have no objection to voting to continue an investigation that is already underway.
That’s thanks in large part to the quiet cajoling of Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry, including some of Trump’s closest allies in Congress: Reps. James R. Comer, the chairman of the Oversight Committee; Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee; and Jason Smith, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
They have made presentations at a series of internal meetings in which they have portrayed Mr. Biden as corrupt and tried to implicate him in the conduct of Hunter Biden, who has been charged with tax crimes.
Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, have launched a marketing campaign aimed at portraying the Bidens as a “crime family,” with a new website and posters featuring grainy photos of the Bidens through of a night vision.
To allay concerns among more mainstream Republicans who could face tough reelection fights, House leaders have also emphasized that the vote is not for impeachment charges, but only to continue an investigation to determine whether these are justified.
“As I listened to the briefings I received during the conference from Chairman Smith, Chairman Comer and Chairman Jordon, it is alarming,” said Rep. Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, the House Committee chairman who is known as an institutional figure . “Because of the activities of these committees, we know much more than we knew a few months ago.”
Interviews with House Republicans who were previously skeptical about approving an impeachment inquiry pointed to several examples of a shift in the dynamic on Capitol Hill.
First, because of Mr. McCarthy’s unilateral announcement in September – which he made when he was under intense pressure from the far right, including over the lack of progress on impeachment – this week’s vote only reaffirms the status quo .
Second, Republicans in the House of Representatives continue to use press releases and television appearances on conservative networks to spread the message that Biden is corrupt, even when there is no evidence. That has prompted Republican primary leaders to pressure their representatives to join an investigation.
Mr. Comer said these voters leaned on the “15 to 20 moderates” who previously expressed concerns about voting to move forward with an investigation.
“Something amazing happened over Thanksgiving,” Mr. Comer told Fox News. “The members went home – many of them for the first time and circulated for the first time in over ten weeks – and they met people at Walmart and people on Main Street, and they said, ‘What the hell have the Bidens got? done to receive millions and millions of dollars from our enemies around the world?’
Third, the White House essentially dared Republicans to vote, dismissing their investigation as illegitimate without the imprimatur of the full House. Richard Sauber, a special counsel to Mr. Biden, condemned the investigation in a Nov. 17 letter and opposed making certain Biden administration officials available for closed-door interviews.
“You also claim the mantle of an ‘impeachment inquiry,’ knowing that the Constitution requires the full House to approve an impeachment inquiry before a committee can use a mandatory procedure under the impeachment power – a step that Republican House majority has so far refused to take it,” he wrote.
Republican leaders used this position to convince impeachment skeptics in their ranks that a formal investigation was the only way to overcome White House opposition.
“We believe deposits should be rare,” Mr Bacon said. “I don’t think revenge accusations are good.” But he added: “If the president refuses to provide documents, as he did last week, because you don’t have a formal investigation, I think that forces our hand.”
Representative Kelly Armstrong, a North Dakota Republican who is also skeptical of impeaching Mr. Biden, introduced the resolution to formalize the investigation.
He said the White House had reasonable defenses for each of the Republicans’ allegations, but that the committees had raised enough questions to keep the investigation going.
“They seem to have an innocent explanation for every single act,” said Mr. Armstrong, a former public defender. “Okay, fine, but it’s pretty hard to have an innocent explanation for all these problems when you look at them in their entirety. And that’s how you can prosecute cases. Many financial crimes, especially abroad, are committed on the basis of overwhelming circumstantial evidence.”
As Republicans press on, many have recognized the political nature of the proceedings. Mr. Trump has called on his loyalists in the House of Representatives to “blame the bum, or fade into oblivion. They did it to us!”
Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas told USA Today that he wanted to give Mr. Trump, who was impeached twice, “a little bit of ammunition to fire back.”
Even some members of the House leadership recognize that there is now a lower standard for impeachment in American politics.
“The Democrats have shifted the standard. Frankly, impeachment — you could almost look at it as a political exercise,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania, the deputy chief whip.
But Democrats argue that Republicans are dragging down the trial, and that it is inappropriate to compare the flimsy charges against Mr. Biden with the alleged crimes of Mr. Trump, who faces 91 felony counts.
“It has been proven time and again that the president of the United States has done absolutely nothing wrong,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “This is a very, very sad day for this committee, for this institution and for this country. This sham of impeachment is, to put it bluntly, an extreme political stunt.”
Pro-Biden groups are now mobilizing to attack Republicans from districts won by Biden, highlighting the political risk these lawmakers are taking by moving forward with the investigation.
For example, the Democratic-leaning Congressional Integrity Project this week launched new mobile billboards calling on Reps. John Duarte and David Valadao, both California Republicans, to reject the investigation.