McCarthy to green light Biden impeachment inquiry this week

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Chris Pandolfo , Chad Pergram , Kelly Phares | Fox News


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Fox News Digital has confirmed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., will tell House Republicans today that beginning an impeachment inquiry against President Biden is "the logical next step."

The House GOP conference plans to hold a meeting on Thursday morning for key committee chairs to lay out their latest findings and the status of the investigations into the Biden family. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., are expected to lead Thursday's meeting.

At the meeting, McCarthy is expected to say an impeachment inquiry is the "logical next step" for the Republican majority. An inquiry is the first step of the impeachment process, where evidence is gathered for the articles, or charges, of impeachment against an official.

This special conference meeting on Thursday is in addition to Wednesday morning’s regularly scheduled weekly GOP meeting where leadership typically lays out priorities for the week. Thursday's scheduled meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News.

Sources previously told Fox News Digital that Republicans were planning to launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden this month. Three separate GOP-led committees have investigated allegations that Hunter Biden leveraged his father's official government positions to secure foreign business deals. The open question for Republican lawmakers is whether President Biden ever personally benefited from his son's deals or abused the power of his office to influence them in any way.

McCarthy said last month that an impeachment inquiry would only happen with a formal House vote.

"To open an impeachment inquiry is a serious matter, and House Republicans would not take it lightly or use it for political purposes. The American people deserve to be heard on this matter through their elected representatives," McCarthy told Breitbart News in a statement. "That’s why, if we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person."

That means 218 lawmakers will need to support an impeachment inquiry against Biden, and it is not at all certain House Republicans have the votes to do it. Several GOP lawmakers including Reps. Ken Buck, R-Colo., and Don Bacon, R-Neb., have voiced skepticism about impeachment. Even some House conservatives who support impeachment have complained about the timing, with Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., telling Fox News Digital last week it appeared McCarthy was "dangling" the issue to avoid a confrontation over spending ahead of the next deadline to fund the government.

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The House Freedom Caucus and other conservatives have urged McCarthy to force deeper spending cuts and to attach GOP priorities to any short or long-term deal, though that’s unlikely to get Senate or White House approval. They view the last debt-limit deal as a betrayal because it did not significantly curtail government spending.

"Hiding behind impeachment to screw America with status quo massive funding … will not end well," Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, warned GOP leaders earlier this month.

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With such a narrow House majority, Republicans can only afford to lose five votes from their conference in an impeachment inquiry vote. Were the House to reject impeachment, it would be a major embarrassment for McCarthy and House Republicans, who would have nothing to show voters for their investigations in next year's general election.

At the same time, impeachment hardliners like Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., have threatened to attempt to remove McCarthy if the House does not follow through with an impeachment vote.

McCarthy's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[lost in melb.]

:fart2:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Hurry up

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Charles Creitz | Fox News


Democrats, whom critics claim have used the impeachment process and special counsels to undermine former President Trump, should not be shocked by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's announcement of an inquiry into President Biden's alleged influence peddling, a former top Bush aide told FOX News.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday announced a formal impeachment inquiry against President Biden, citing "serious and credible allegations into President Biden's conduct." The impeachment process had only been used twice in the first 222 years of the union – against Democratic Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton – until Democrats impeached Trump twice during his four years in office.

"Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats set the precedent here," former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen said on "The Story." "Let's put aside the merits of this impeachment inquiry for a second: What did Democrats think was going to happen?"

Thiessen said Pelosi, D-Calif., and her party overtly and overly abused political and judicial institutions for years as a means of attacking their chief opponent, Trump.

The Trump-Russia collusion probe turned out to be based on a "conspiracy theory" and while Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – which included language suggesting the European leader take a look into the Biden family's activity in the country – was "shameful," it was not explicitly impeachable, he argued.

Thiessen said the most recent example of Democrats' hypocrisy in crying foul over the use of legislative levers like impeachment against the leader of their party is the fact the U.S. Senate acquitted Trump of the very criminal allegations Atlanta prosecutor Fani Willis charged Trump with in regard to the Jan. 6 riots.

There is one lawsuit – launched in Colorado – has also sought to remove Trump from the ballot on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment's insurrection clause – an idea forwarded by Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe and former George H.W. Bush-appointed federal Judge J. Michael Luttig.

"All these things that they've done: Did they think that there was not going to be any blowback? Did they think that the Republicans were not going to turn around and say, 'OK, you've set the precedent, we're going to use these all these tools … against you?" Thiessen asked.

He added that, in the reverse context, Democrats are also using the government's powers to "protect" President Biden and his son Hunter from criminal scrutiny, citing the widely-criticized investigation being led by Delaware federal prosecutor-turned-Special Counsel David Weiss.

Thiessen noted abnormal behavior from Hunter's team and federal prosecutor's office reached such a level that a Wilmington federal judge rebuked both sides.

"So Republicans are looking at this and saying -- 'They're using these institutions. This is fair game,'" he said. "And two, 'We don't trust the institutions anymore, so we need the tools of an impeachment inquiry to go after to to to get to the bottom of this story' -- which is a legitimate inquiry as to whether or not there was corruption in the Biden family."

White House spokesman for oversight and investigations Ian Sams told "The Story" that opening an impeachment inquiry with zero evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden is simply red meat for the extreme rightwing, so they can keep baselessly attacking him."