House Republican on potential Biden impeachment: ‘I am not interested in playing tit for tat’

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on Sunday expressed hesitation about House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik’s (N.Y.) suggestion that impeaching President Biden is “on the table” if the GOP takes control of the chamber after the November midterms.

“Do you think President Biden has committed any impeachable offenses?” CNN “State of the Union” co-anchor Jake Tapper asked Mace.

“That is something that would have to be investigated,” Mace responded. “I am not interested in playing tit for tat. I am not interested in retaliation. Impeachment has been weaponized over the years, and we’ve seen that.”

Mace’s response came days after Stefanik indicated Republicans could move to impeach Biden over the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden and the White House’s reported request for Saudi Arabia and its oil-exporting allies to delay a production cut.

“When there’s an egregious abuse of power and high crimes and misdemeanors, that means anything is on the table,” Stefanik told the New York Post on Monday.

Such a delay would have deferred the cut’s impact on gasoline prices until after the midterm elections. The White House has rejected the notion that the delay request was tied to the elections, instead linking it to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and global economic conditions. 

Mace has previously said pressure exists for Republicans to impeach Biden if they take the majority in the next Congress. 

GOP lawmakers have outlined a series of investigations they wish to pursue against the Biden administration. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) introduced an article of impeachment against Biden the day after his inauguration.

But Mace, a South Carolina Republican, has criticized past impeachments for stripping away due process, suggesting it is why she did not vote to impeach former President Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

“I really want us to be focused on the economy, on tackling inflation with responsible policy,” Mace said on CNN of a hypothetical Republican-controlled Congress.

Mace also drew attention to the large number of migrants crossing the border and an influx of fentanyl. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said last week it encountered more migrants in the last fiscal year than any other.

“We’ve got fentanyl racing across every street in America,” Mace told Tapper. “And in fact there was enough fentanyl discovered in South Carolina two weeks ago to kill 1 million people. And so we’ve got to get very serious about those issues, and that’s where I believe our focus should be when Republicans are in the majority.”