House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is looking to move forward with a formal impeachment inquiry vote against President Biden, saying that it is a \u2018necessary step\u2019 as the White House continues to stonewall investigations by House Republicans into alleged wrongdoing by the Biden family.<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s remarks came during a Saturday appearance on \u2018Fox & Friends Weekend,\u2019 where he, along with House GOP conference chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., spoke to several topics and were asked about plans to bring forth a vote on impeachment.<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s become a necessary step,\u2019 he said. \u2018Elise and I both served on the impeachment defense team of Donald Trump twice when the Democrats used it for brazen, partisan political purposes. We decried that use of it. This is very different. Remember, we are the rule of law team. We have to do it very methodically.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Our three committees of jurisdiction \u2014 judiciary, oversight, ways and means \u2014 have been doing an extraordinary job following the evidence where it leads,\u2019 he continued. \u2018But now we\u2019re being stonewalled by the White House, because they\u2019re preventing at least two to three DOJ witnesses from coming forward, a former White House counsel, the national archives . . . the White House has withheld thousands of pages of evidence.\u2019<\/p>\n
Reaffirming his belief in moving forward with the process, Johnson said a \u2018formal impeachment inquiry vote on the floor will allow [Republicans] to take it to the next necessary step.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I think it\u2019s something we have to do at this juncture,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s comments came after multiple Republicans said Friday that a vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry of President Biden is likely to come before the House of Representatives breaks for the December recess.<\/p>\n
House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., told reporters he expected his committee to get the legislation \u2018sometime next week,\u2019 which will likely tee up a House-wide vote shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n
Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., said that he anticipates a House-wide vote \u2018before we will break\u2019 on December 15.<\/p>\n
\u2018I think that every Republican should be convinced about voting for the impeachment inquiry, there\u2019s plenty of smoke there,\u2019 Gimenez said.<\/p>\n
The Republicans spoke after a closed-door House GOP Conference meeting where the three chairmen investigating Biden and his family \u2014 Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.; Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; and Ways & Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo. \u2014 reiterating their case for lawmakers.<\/p>\n
Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern, R-Okla., said that the meeting had been held \u2018to see where the votes are and make sure everybody\u2019s communicated with, people have had their chance to understand what an impeachment inquiry is versus impeachment.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s important we get it done as soon as possible so that we can move forward with this investigation,\u2019 Hern said.<\/p>\n
Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., said a vote would likely come \u2018soon\u2019 and contrasted the push to formalize Republicans\u2019 impeachment inquiry with how House Democrats handled former President Donald Trump, moving forward with the impeachment process without a House-wide vote.<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019re actually trying to do it the right way,\u2019 Murphy said.<\/p>\n
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., directed the House to\u00a0open an impeachment inquiry\u00a0into Biden in September, but the White House has dismissed the probe as illegitimate without a formal vote on the matter.<\/p>\n
The administration\u2019s resistance to cooperating with House investigators\u2019 subpoenas has inspired even Republicans in districts won by Biden in 2020 to support formalizing the inquiry.<\/p>\n
Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., told Fox News Digital, \u2018This is what the administration has asked for.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018The administration made it very clear, they weren\u2019t going to actually work with our constitutional authority, unless we did the vote. Fine,\u2019 Schweikert said.<\/p>\n
Oversight Democrats sent out a five-page memo Friday morning rebutting Republicans\u2019 claims, citing a \u2018mountain of evidence\u2019 they said clears Biden of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
\u2018Rather than accept these facts, Republicans have resorted to cherry-picking and distorting facts in order to justify continuing this sham investigation aimed at satisfying the demands for retribution of President Trump who was twice indicted and now faces 91 felony counts,\u2019 the memo read.<\/p>\n
Fox News\u2019 Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is looking to move forward with a formal impeachment inquiry vote against President Biden, saying that it is a \u2018necessary step\u2019 as the White House continues to stonewall investigations by House Republicans into alleged wrongdoing by the Biden family. Johnson\u2019s remarks came during a Saturday appearance on \u2018Fox & Friends <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12415,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}