WASHINGTON (CN) — Ahead of a crucial House vote on a resolution to formally authorize impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden, Democrats blasted their Republican colleagues Tuesday for what they framed as an attempt to conceal the probe from public scrutiny.
The lower chamber is expected to vote on the proposed measure this week, which would further expand House Republicans’ ongoing investigation into the Biden family and their finances.
Lawmakers have yet to uncover any solid evidence that President Biden was involved in any financial malfeasance, but that hasn’t stopped GOP leaders from making sweeping allegations against the president, including claims that Biden leveraged his political clout to advance the business dealings of his son Hunter.
Democrats, on the other hand, have disparaged their colleagues’ investigation as a political stunt — retribution on behalf of former President Donald Trump, who was impeached twice during his one term for conduct related to a Ukrainian influence scheme and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Meanwhile, Republicans’ proposed impeachment resolution took a step closer to the House floor Tuesday morning as the lower chamber’s Rules Committee voted to advance the measure on a 9-4 party line vote.
Despite the strong contentions of some GOP lawmakers, the panel’s Republican leadership sought to approach the impeachment probe with a lighter touch.
“We are here to determine a process, not an outcome,” said Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole, the Rules Committee chairman. “We are here to assert our Article I responsibility, not to act as judge and jury.”
Formally authorizing impeachment proceedings, Cole reasoned, would give House committees “the strongest legal standing” to collect information and enforce subpoenas related to lawmakers’ probe of the Biden family.
The proposed resolution, the Oklahoma Republican added, was based on a framework set by Democrats in 2019 as they moved to impeach Trump the first time. While Republicans opposed such legislation at the time, Cole explained, it set a precedent for future impeachment proceedings.
“Having created this procedure in 2019, it's appropriate that we follow it in 2023,” he said.
Democrats took the opportunity to again slam their Republican colleagues for attempting to move ahead with impeachment proceedings despite a lack of strong evidence implicating President Biden in any wrongdoing.
“This impeachment sham … has no credibility, no legitimacy and no integrity,” said Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern, the Rules Committee’s Democratic ranking member. “Every single Republican allegation has been debunked, discredited or disproven.”
McGovern accused his GOP colleagues of pursuing impeachment in a bid to get former President Trump reelected and to shield him from scrutiny over a litany of criminal charges.
“They want to hang around Joe Biden's neck to tarnish him as he heads into the next election,” he said. “They think it will muddy the waters and confuse people who know in their gut that Trump is a criminal. “
Lawmakers sparred over the language of the proposed impeachment resolution, which Democrats argued gives Republicans license to conduct their probe behind closed doors and out of the public eye.
GOP lawmakers voted down an amendment offered by Colorado Democrat Joe Neguse, who suggested that the resolution should explicitly commit to transparency during the impeachment process.
Such language, Neguse told his colleagues, had been present in Democrats 2019 impeachment resolution but is nowhere to be found in the current measure, which he called a “glaring omission.”
“I don’t think this was an accident,” the Colorado lawmaker said. “It wasn’t an error by omission. It was intentional.”
Firing back at Neguse, Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie shifted the blame onto Democrats, arguing that Democrats had conducted closed-door interviews with witnesses in their 2019 impeachment inquiry and that the GOP was simply following their lead.
“There was no semblance of openness,” Massie said.
Neguse parried his colleague by pointing out that those private meetings had taken place before Democrats passed their formalized impeachment resolution, which mandated transparency in the process. On the flipside, he said, the Republican version opens the door for lawmakers to shroud the Biden probe in secrecy.
“That’s all I’m trying to figure out,” Neguse told Massie. “Why is the language permissive? Why has ‘open and transparent’ been deleted?”
The Kentucky Republican did not directly answer the question, again falling back on his argument about how Democrats handled their impeachment investigation before the 2019 resolution was passed.
Cole later interjected, explaining to Neguse and his fellow Democrats that language about transparency had been removed to give committee chairs more discretion in what material is made public during the formal impeachment inquiry.
“We trust the chairmen to do the right thing,” he said. “We want these committees to operate independently.”
Whether Republicans can get their impeachment measure through the House, though, remains an open question. Under the GOP’s already razor-thin majority — which shrank this month after lawmakers voted to expel New York Representative George Santos — the party can only afford to lose around three votes.
Some congressional Republicans, such as Colorado Representative Ken Buck, have expressed reticence about formalizing the probe, casting aspersions on whether President Biden indeed committed impeachable offenses.
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