House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday defended a vote scheduled this week to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, arguing that unlike what Democrats did with the \u2018sham impeachment\u2019 of former President Trump, Republicans are committed to the \u2018rule of law.\u2019<\/p>\n
Fox News\u2019 Chad Pergram pressed Johnson on an expectation from the GOP base to bring an impeachment vote sometime in the spring ahead of the 2024 presidential election.<\/p>\n
Johnson explained that House Republicans have \u2018come to this impasse\u2019 in their investigations into President Biden\u2019s alleged involvement in son Hunter Biden\u2019s business dealings and are \u2018hitting a stone wall because the White House is impeding that investigation\u2019 and not allowing witnesses to come forward and thousands of pages of documents. The vote on a resolution to formalize the House impeachment inquiry, which is currently set for Wednesday, is not the same as a vote to impeach.<\/p>\n
\u2018We have no choice to fulfill our constitutional responsibility. We have to take the next step. We\u2019re not making a political decision. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s a legal decision,\u2019 Johnson said at the House Republican Conference press conference on Tuesday. \u2018So, people have feelings about it one way or the other. We can\u2019t prejudge the outcome. The Constitution does not permit us to do so. We have to follow the truth where it takes us and that is exactly what we\u2019re going to do.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noting some frustration about the time being invested in the impeachment probe, Johnson argued, \u2018[T]his is the way the Founders anticipated that something like this would go.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018There shouldn\u2019t be any such thing as a snap impeachment, a sham impeachment like the Democrats did against President Trump. This is the opposite of that,\u2019 Johnson said. \u2018And that\u2019s why people are getting restless, because they want things to happen quickly. If you follow the Constitution and you do the right thing, you cannot rush it. You have to follow the facts.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Piggybacking off Pergram\u2019s question about pressure for Johnson to bring the impeachment vote while Republicans hold a slim majority, another reporter asked Johnson, \u2018If you get into the spring and decide not to impeach the president based on the inquiry, you would be comfortable with that decision essentially absolving him months before a presidential election?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019re not going to prejudge the outcome of this,\u2019 Johnson responded. \u2018We can\u2019t because, again, it\u2019s not a political calculation. We\u2019re following the law, and we are the rule of law team. And I\u2019m going to hold to that as my commitment.\u2019<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s vote will allow the House Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means committees to continue their investigations into the Biden family business dealings, said House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., saying the \u2018Biden administration has been stonewalling our investigations.\u2019<\/p>\n
The Justice Department has refused to allow two attorneys to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, Emmer said at the press conference. The White House sent House Oversight and Accountability Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., and House Judiciary Chair Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a letter in which it said that \u2018they have no intention of complying with our subpoenas and requests for interviews without a formal vote,\u2019 according to Emmer, who also noted the National Archives has \u2018withheld thousands of pages of documents and emails.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s clear the House will have to defend our lawful investigations in court, and passing this resolution will put us in the best position possible to enforce our subpoenas and set forth a clear process,\u2019 Emmer said. \u2018As we have said numerous times before, voting in favor of an impeachment inquiry does not equal impeachment. We will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead. And if they uncovered evidence of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, then and only then will the next steps towards impeachment proceedings be considered. No one in this country is above the law, and that includes President Joe Biden.\u2019<\/p>\n
Fox News\u2019 Chad Pergram contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday defended a vote scheduled this week to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, arguing that unlike what Democrats did with the \u2018sham impeachment\u2019 of former President Trump, Republicans are committed to the \u2018rule of law.\u2019 Fox News\u2019 Chad Pergram pressed Johnson on an expectation from the GOP base <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12774","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\/12774","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=12774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}