House Speaker Kevin McCarthy urged rank-and-file Republicans on Wednesday to oppose a resolution offered by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., that would force a quick vote to impeach President Joe Biden, arguing that such an important issue should go through the committee process, three GOP sources who heard the comments confirmed.
McCarthy, R-Calif., made his remarks at a closed-door meeting of House Republicans as lawmakers debated whether they should press forward now with an impeachment vote while multiple GOP-led committees are still in the middle of investigating the president and his family members.
McCarthy “thinks we should go through committee,” said a GOP lawmaker who was in the room. “When we treat it frivolously, it strengthens Biden and weakens us.”
When Democrats controlled the chamber, McCarthy had vehemently argued that the other party was rushing to impeach President Donald Trump, not once, but twice. Now, he is warning that Republicans could fall into the same trap by immediately voting to impeach Biden.
“The speaker’s message was that we need to follow regular order and let the committees do their work,” a second source said.
Later Wednesday afternoon, McCarthy confirmed to reporters that he opposes an impeachment vote right now, arguing that to “prematurely” pursue it “undercuts” GOP efforts to investigate Biden.
“It’s very serious,” he said of impeachment. “That’s why I don’t want to do anything that harms the investigation we’re going through right now.”
The House Oversight and Judiciary committees have probes focusing on Biden.
Boebert did not attend the weekly House GOP Conference meeting, lawmakers said, so she did not hear McCarthy’s comments directly. Boebert, a conservative bomb thrower and fierce McCarthy critic, shocked colleagues by introducing impeachment articles Tuesday night as a “privileged” resolution, which means it must be voted on within two legislative days.
“Republicans need to stick together and get this man out office for his dereliction of duty on the Southern Border,” she tweeted Wednesday.
Some Republicans predicted that the resolution did not have enough GOP votes to pass. Moderate Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said impeachment should go through the committee process and confirmed he would back a Democratic effort to “table” Boebert’s resolution, or set it aside.
“I think if people see that we’re being honest about this and that impeachment is a very serious thing, it should go through committee,” Bacon told reporters. “I feel like it was cheapened in the last Congress. We shouldn’t follow the same footprints.
“I think in the end, it’s going to be tabled,” he continued. “And I believe in team sports and working together, and this is an individual that I believe is undermining the team.”
Boebert’s resolution is part of a larger push by the House GOP majority to retaliate against its political enemies. On Wednesday, the GOP-led House will vote on a resolution by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., to censure former Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also vows to introduce other privileged resolutions to impeach Biden and other top administration officials.
Leaving Wednesday’s meeting, Greene, a McCarthy ally who has been feuding with Boebert for months, accused Boebert of copying her own articles of impeachment against Biden.
“I had already introduced articles of impeachment on Joe Biden for the border, asked her to co-sponsor mine — she didn’t,” Greene said. “She basically copied my articles and then introduced them and then changed them to a privileged resolution.
“So of course I support them, because they’re identical to mine. They’re basically copied,” she said.
Source – NBC News
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