Republicans continue Biden impeachment inquiry

An effort to investigate—and potentially impeach­— President Joe Biden started under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy has roared back to life under the new-appointed House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Johnson held a press briefing on Wednesday morning in a room lined with yellow, black, and white posters on easels showing photos of articles and evidence related to the investigation. Each poster was emblazoned with the words “BIDEN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY.”

“We have a duty to pursue the facts where they lead,” Johnson said. “John Adams famously said, ‘facts are stubborn things.’ These facts are alarming—alarming to the American people and alarming to us. While we take no pleasure in the proceedings here, we have a responsibility to do it.”

During the conference, Republicans laid out a broad line of arguments they would pursue, given the work already done by the Republicans Judiciary, Oversight, and Ways and Means committees since September.

Johnson pledged that the committees would lay bare Biden’s involvements in his son’s international business dealings and clearly define how the Biden family benefited directly from those interactions. Republicans will continue hearing testimony from a pair of IRS whistleblowers who claim to have knowledge of the president’s circumvention of federal law. Moreover, Johnson said lawmakers would survey how the Department of Justice had declined to investigate those allegations.

These lines of inquiry, Johnson stressed, need to be apolitical. He briefly criticized two impeachment efforts into former President Donald Trump during his time in office: one for “an abuse of power and obstruction of Congress” and another on “incitement of insurrection.” These, Johnson said, were primarily politically motivated because of the brevity of their consideration.

“What you are seeing here is exactly the opposite,” Johnson said. “You don’t rush something like this—you can’t if you’re going to have fidelity to the constitution. These chairmen are dedicated to pursuing this in that matter.”

Johnson pledged to release more information in the next few weeks but declined to say if and when formal impeachment charges would be brought against the president. He said the committees needed to hear from a few more key witnesses before any such consideration.

“We are not pre-judging this,” Johnson said in closing. “We will have a lot more to share on this in the days ahead.”