The Republican-led House last Wednesday voted to authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden despite some concerns among Republicans that the investigation started in January has yet to produce evidence of misconduct, the Associated Press reported.
In a party-line vote of 221 to 212, the entire Republican conference voted in favor of the inquiry to determine if the president committed high crimes and misdemeanors in his family’s influence-peddling operations.
Following the authorization vote, the White House released a statement from the president decrying the vote as a “baseless political stunt” and criticizing Republican lawmakers for focusing on attacking him “with lies” rather than “doing anything to help make Americans’ lives better.”
Biden argued in his statement that even some Republican lawmakers have admitted that the inquiry “is not supported by the facts.”
The decision to hold a full House vote on the inquiry came as Speaker of the House Mike Johnson faced increased pressure to make progress on the nearly yearlong investigations into the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.
In a statement following last Wednesday’s vote, the Republican House leadership, including Speaker Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, and Republican Conference Chair Elise Stafanik said while they did not take the responsibility lightly and would “not prejudge the investigation’s outcome,” the evidence in the yearlong probe was “impossible to ignore.”
While appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the Sunday before the House vote, outgoing Republican Senator Mitt Romney dismissed the impeachment inquiry, telling host Kristen Welker that the House investigations have so far not turned up any evidence that the president committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
In an appearance on MSNBC that same day, Republican strategist and MSNBC contributor Lucy Caldwell suggested that an impeachment inquiry during an election year could backfire on Republicans since it could rally the Democrat base around Biden.
Caldwell, who headed up Joe Walsh’s failed challenge to Donald Trump in 2020, also described the impeachment inquiry as “ridiculous” and “baseless.”
