House GOP advances impeachment inquiry resolution, teeing up vote

House Republicans took a step toward voting to authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden on Tuesday, passing the resolution to do so out of the House Rules Committee.

A floor vote on the resolution is expected Wednesday, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said.

The multi-pronged impeachment probe is digging into hotly disputed allegations about whether Biden improperly benefited from or used policy to benefit the foreign business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden, and other family members, as well as allegations that the Department of Justice improperly slow-walked a tax crimes investigation into Hunter Biden. The president and the White House have repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said that Biden was not involved in his family’s business dealings.

Republicans have argued that a vote to authorize the inquiry is necessary in order to give put legal weight behind their requests for information and subpoenas in potential court battles, after the White House responded to requests for information by saying that the impeachment inquiry was unconstitutional because it had not been authorized by a full House vote.

Ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had deemed that the various investigations were under the umbrella of an impeachment inquiry in September, without a vote.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other Republicans have said that authorizing an impeachment inquiry is distinct from bringing up impeachment articles themselves.

“We’re not making a political decision. It’s not. It’s a legal decision,” Johnson said in a press conference Tuesday. “So, people have feelings about it one way or the other. We can’t prejudge the outcome; the Constitution does not permit us to do so. We have to follow the truth where it takes us.”

GOP members argued the same in the House Rules Committee hearing Tuesday.

“If there’s nothing to hide, there should be no issue with following the process,” Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), the chief deputy whip for the House GOP, said in the hearing.

That same rationale is getting swing-seat and moderate House Republicans on board to support the impeachment inquiry resolution.

But Democrats have argued that the inquiry vote all but assures a vote on articles sometime in the near future.

“There isn’t a single one of you who is going to vote against impeachment if articles are brought to the floor four weeks from now, eight weeks from now, 10 weeks from now. So, pretending as though this is just somehow a very simple step forward to approve a perfunctory or cursory process, is not level-setting with the American people,” Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) said in the Rules Committee hearing.