Is GOP getting closer to impeaching Biden?

WASHINGTON – House Republicans are gearing up for the next step in their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, as GOP leaders eye a vote to formally authorize their investigation into the president and the corruption allegations he faces.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., signaled Republicans are rallying around the move as they try to strengthen the effort’s legitimacy.

“A formal impeachment inquiry vote on the floor will allow us to take it to the next necessary step, and I think it is something we have to do at this juncture,” Johnson said in an interview on Fox News on Saturday. He argued that the formal vote would grant Republicans more authority and accused the White House of “stonewalling” investigators.

House Republicans allege Biden financially benefited from his family’s foreign business dealings, but they have yet to produce evidence directly implicating him in those overseas ventures.

Why the push to impeach?

The GOP-led House Oversight Committee on Monday released recurring payments the president’s son, Hunter Biden, made to his father in 2018. But public records from Hunter Biden’s laptop suggest that money was for a car repayment.

“There Chairman Comer goes again – reheating what is old as new to try to revive his sham of an investigation,” Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, said in a statement, saying that Joe Biden helped his son purchase a truck when he was financially struggling and that Hunter Biden later repaid his father.

House Republicans’ latest effort goes beyond criticizing the president or his family. If they can formally greenlight the inquiry on the House floor, they could bolster the probe’s legal standing.

“If you have a vote of the full House of Representatives, and a majority say we are in that official status as part of our overall oversight work or constitutional oversight duty that we have, it just helps us in court,” House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters in a briefing on the inquiry.

The full authorization of the inquiry would come after former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., opened the probe in September without a formal vote among the entire House. Since the inquiry began, the White House has scoffed at the investigation and argued it lacks “constitutional legitimacy” to be considered an impeachment inquiry.

Playing politics?

“It’s important we get it done as soon as possible so we can move forward with this investigation,” Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., said last week, noting that the GOP still has to tread carefully and convince any Republicans who could be skeptical of the inquiry, given the party’s razor-thin majority in the lower chamber.

“We can only lose four votes. We have to make sure everybody’s involved in that because we know the Democrats won’t support it.”

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., chair of the pragmatic Main Street Caucus, told USA TODAY Friday there is still “a large gathering of members that are concerned about an inquiry vote.”

“Lots of members want to make sure that it is actually legally constitutional and that we’re not prejudging facts,” he said, adding there is a concern from members that the inquiry could appear as if the GOP was being “motivated by politics.”