Begun, the Impeachment Inquiry Has
Plus: Republicans’ new “moderate” infuriates the local press.
House Republicans voted yesterday to formally begin their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The 221-212 vote fell entirely along partisan lines. This marks a new phase in the House Oversight Committee’s haphazard fishing expedition for evidence of illegal conduct on the part of the president, which has so far found Republicans battling among themselves and even with typically credulous conservative media outlets.
Republican defenders of the inquiry insist it is part of a methodical fact-finding approach to a real issue and that it is a constitutional exercise in good accountability. They have quickly moved on from the position House Speaker Mike Johnson took on impeachment back in 2019, when he argued that the scant evidence and partisan motivation for the House’s case against then-President DonaldTrump would cause “irreparable damage” to America. (There was significantly more evidence in that case than the current one, although Johnson’s office claims the inverse is true.)
Immediately after the vote, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said:
Today's unanimous vote by our conference showed that we are united as a conference. We expect to have people honor our subpoenas. We want to wrap this investigation up, but obviously, you get to the deposition phase before you wrap up an investigation so that's where we are.
Democrats railed against the vote as a waste of time and resources and a cynical partisan ploy to damage Biden heading into an election year.
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