House GOP invites president to testify as impeachment inquiry stalls
WASHINGTON — House Republicans continued impeachment efforts against the Biden administration Thursday as Speaker Mike Johnson indicated he will send articles of impeachment for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate next month, and President Joe Biden was invited to testify before Congress about his family’s business affairs.
The Republican speaker said he would send the two articles on April 10. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to swear in senators as jurors in the trial the next day, according to his office.
The House impeached Mayorkas on a razor-thin party-line vote in February, but Johnson had delayed sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate while Congress addressed funding for the government.
Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter Thursday to the president, inviting him to sit for a public hearing to “explain, under oath,” what involvement he had in the Biden family businesses.
“In light of the yawning gap between your public statements and the evidence assembled by the Committee, as well as the White House’s obstruction, it is in the best interest of the American people for you to answer questions from Members of Congress directly, and I hereby invite you to do so,” the Kentucky Republican wrote.
The invitation comes as the monthslong inquiry into Biden is all but winding down as Republicans face the stark reality that it lacks the political appetite from within the conference to go forward with an actual impeachment. Nonetheless, leaders of the effort, including Comer are facing growing political pressure to deliver something after months of work investigating the Biden family and its web of international business transactions.
The White House has repeatedly called the inquiry baseless, telling Republicans to “move on” and focus on “real issues” Americans want addressed.
The committee has alleged an influence-peddling scheme between Joe Biden, when he was vice president or out of office, and son Hunter Biden and his business associates.
Impeachment for Mayorkas, who would be the first Cabinet secretary to receive the punishment in nearly 150 years, is expected to quickly fizzle in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Republicans took the action against Mayorkas to rebuke his handling of the nation’s southern border, but critics, including a few Republicans, say the House did not demonstrate that his actions reached the Constitution’s bar of high crimes and misdemeanors.