Yesterday, Speaker McCarthy announced he is directing Jim Jordan, James Comer, and Jason Smith to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden without holding a vote, and without a single shred of evidence of wrongdoing after nearly nine months of investigations. But McCarthy’s actions are completely transparent. This bogus impeachment inquiry all comes at the direction of Donald Trump as a desperate, pathetic attempt to distract from his 91 felony counts in order to help him return to the White House in 2024.
In response, Congressional Integrity Project executive director, Kyle Herrig, issued the following statement:
“Kevin McCarthy is the weakest Speaker of the House in modern times. He is letting his entire agenda be decided by a disgraced, twice impeached, insurrectionist ex-president, who is facing 91 criminal counts across four cases. MAGA House Republicans have spent the last 9 months holding hearings and reviewing thousands of pages of records and have not found a single shred of evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. All this inquiry is going to prove is that MAGA Republicans are willing to put undying loyalty to Trump and baseless political stunts above helping the American people.”
New York Times: Trump Has Been Privately Encouraging G.O.P. Lawmakers to Impeach Biden. “Mr. Trump’s dinner with Ms. Greene came just two nights before Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced his decision on Tuesday to order the opening of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, under intense pressure from his right flank. Over the past several months, Mr. Trump has kept a close watch on House Republicans’ momentum toward impeaching Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump has talked regularly by phone with members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and other congressional Republicans who pushed for impeachment, according to a person close to Mr. Trump who was not authorized to publicly discuss the conversations. Mr. Trump has encouraged the effort both privately and publicly.” [New York Times, 9/13/23]
POLITICO: Trump Privately Discussed Biden Impeachment With House GOPers. “Donald Trump has been weighing in behind the scenes in support of the House GOP push to impeach President Joe Biden, including talking with a member of leadership in the lead up to Tuesday’s announcement authorizing a formal impeachment inquiry. The former president has been speaking weekly with House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, who was the first member of Republican leadership to come out in support of impeachment. The two spoke Tuesday, after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced Republicans would be pursuing the inquiry, according to two people familiar with the conversation […] On Sunday night, Trump had dinner at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), an ally of Trump and McCarthy. At the gathering, the topic of impeachment was discussed, according to a person familiar with the conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity.” [POLITICO, 9/12/23]
CNN: The Most Predictable Impeachment Investigation In American History. “The impression that McCarthy is acting at the behest of a vengeful Trump was bolstered by the disclosure that the ex-president was on the phone with House leadership on Tuesday, as CNN reported. It’s not new for the California Republican to be seen to be Trump’s proxy. He pledged loyalty to the former president at Mar-a-Lago days after he left office in disgrace for telling his supporters to ‘fight like hell’ before the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021.” [CNN, 9/13/23]
The Hill: Trump Speaks With Stefanik As GOP moves forward with Biden impeachment Inquiry. “Former President Trump spoke Tuesday with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) shortly after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) directed committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Stefanik, the House Republican Conference chairwoman, confirmed they had spoken. A source familiar with the conversation said Trump and Stefanik spoke shortly after McCarthy made the announcement at the Capitol about the impeachment inquiry. ‘I speak to President Trump a lot. I spoke to him today,’ Stefanik told reporters.” [The Hill, 9/12/23]
The Independent: Trump Met MAGA Republicans To Discuss Biden Impeachment Inquiry. “Donald Trump met with some MAGA Republicans to discuss the launch of an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden in the days before House Speaker Kevin McCarthy threw his support behind the move, according to a report. Sources told Politico that the former president has been speaking with House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik every week in the lead-up to Tuesday’s announcement. He also met Marjorie Taylor Greene in person on Sunday, with the Georgia congress member posting an image of the pair together on Truth Social. In the meetings, he is said to have been weighing in on the push to impeach his successor.” [The Independent, 9/12/23]
The Guardian: Trump ‘Privately Encouraged House Republicans To Impeach Biden’. “Trump has talked regularly with members of the House Freedom Caucus and other congressional Republicans who pushed for a Biden impeachment inquiry, according to a New York Times report published this morning. The former president dined with the far-right congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said she told Trump she wanted the impeachment inquiry to be ‘long and excruciatingly painful for Joe Biden’. A Politico report on Tuesday wrote that the former president has been speaking on a weekly basis with House GOP conference chair Elise Stefanik, who was the first member of Republican leadership to come out in support of impeachment.” [The Guardian, 9/13/23]
New York Magazine: Republicans Already Told Us Impeachment Is Revenge for Trump. “That House Republicans are now launching an impeachment inquiry over this very same charge seems not exactly coincidental. It is also not a surprise that Trump has been privately urging House Republicans to impeach Biden. What has transformed this longstanding desire into an actual impeachment investigation is not any investigative finding, but simply an impatience by Trump and his supporters to get on with it. “Either impeach the bum, or fade into oblivion,’ Trump posted. ‘They did it to us!’ Yet the fact that Republicans have been threatening a revenge impeachment against the next Democratic president literally since Trump’s first impeachment has been oddly absent from news coverage. The Associated Press, in an appropriately skeptical explainer, answers the question of why Republicans are doing this: ‘Since gaining the House majority in January, House Republicans have aggressively investigated Biden and his son, claiming without evidence that they engaged in an influence-peddling scheme.’ Well, that’s true, but it’s not why Republicans are impeaching Biden. They are impeaching him specifically to even the score with Trump.” [New York Magazine, 9/13/23]