GOP rep says House shouldn’t ‘repeat mistakes’ of Trump impeachment with Biden

Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) said Sunday the House should not “repeat the mistakes” of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) impeachment inquiry into former President Trump when weighing the same for President Biden.

“We don’t want to repeat the mistakes we think that Nancy Pelosi made by prematurely moving to impeachment during the Trump administration,” Hill said in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has suggested the House could hold a vote to launch an impeachment inquiry as soon as this month, despite hesitation from some GOP moderates.

House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who is leading a congressional investigation into Biden’s family and business dealings, said last week he believes there are enough votes in the House to open an impeachment inquiry.

Hill said he does not believe Comer nor House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have “even remotely completed” the investigations into the Biden family’s foreign business dealings. 

“I don’t believe they’ve even remotely completed their work on the kind of detailed investigations and quality work that Speaker McCarthy is expecting both those committees to produce before someone goes to, you know, an impeachment activity,” the Arkansas representative said.

While investigations have not implicated Biden of illegal activity, Comer and other GOP members argue an impeachment inquiry would provide them with the tools to investigate more thoroughly.

In July, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) expressed similar concerns over a Biden impeachment, warning Republicans against falling into the “trap” of impeachment. Trump was impeached twice by a majority-Democratic House, with 10 Republicans voting in favor the second time after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Republicans in the Senate acquitted Trump in both instances.