The White House doesn’t seem too concerned about the potential for an impeachment inquiry, following the recent announcement from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that one would likely move forward.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden himself brushed off mention of the inquiry, saying that he believes members of the GOP who are launching it just want the federal government to shut down.
While speaking in Virginia at a fundraiser for his party, Biden said his focus right now is on things other than a potential impeachment inquiry. He said:
“I’m focused on the things the American people want me focused on.”
In other remarks that night, Biden referenced Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia, who has long been considered a close ally of former President Donald Trump. The president said:
“The first day she was elected, the first thing she wanted to do was impeach Biden. … Look, I’ve got a job. I’ve got to deal with the issues that affect the American people every single, solitary day.”
Biden’s remarks at the Virginia fundraiser come one day after Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House, tweeted a rather lengthy response to the announcement that an impeachment inquiry would begin.
He wrote:
“Will anyone ask Speaker McCarthy *why* an impeachment inquiry is the ‘next logical step?’ The House GOP investigations have turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by POTUS. In fact, their own witnesses have testified to that, and their own documents have showed no link to POTUS. …
“McCarthy is being told by Marjorie Taylor Greene to do impeachment, or else she’ll shut down the government. Opening impeachment despite zero evidence of wrongdoing by POTUS is simply red meat for the extreme rightwing so they can keep baselessly attacking him. They admit it.”
Some political pundits – and plenty of people on the left – think the Speaker has relented to the far-right wing of the House GOP in moving forward with the impeachment inquiry. They say he’s afraid that if he doesn’t initiate the inquiry, that a call to vacate the chair will happen.
In announcing that a formal inquiry would begin, McCarthy said that potential charges against Biden could include obstruction, corruption and abuse of power.
For a while now, Republicans in the House have been trying to connect the dots between the foreign business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, with the president himself. Many have accused the president of using his power while he was vice president to get his son more favorable overseas deals.
On multiple occasions, the White House – and the president himself – have denied that Biden ever had any involvement with Hunter’s business affairs. While Republicans haven’t yet provided any evidence to the contrary, they have received some testimony from one of Hunter’s former business partners who said that Hunter got his dad on the phone a few times when they were meeting with business partners in Ukraine.
The White House hasn’t sat back in response to the impeachment inquiry, though, choosing instead to go on the offensive. The Biden administration sent a memo to leaders of news outlets, asking them to hold members of the GOP “accountable for the fact that they are lurching toward impeachment over allegations that are not only unfounded but, in virtually all cases, have been actively disproven.”
