House Republicans on Wednesday formally greenlit an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, their biggest step to date toward trying to remove the president from office.
Every Republican supported the 221-212 vote, which legally will further empower House GOP subpoenas. It comes at a critical juncture: The conference is preparing to make a decision as soon as January about whether or not to draft articles of impeachment.
It’s a win for Speaker Mike Johnson, who managed to unify his conference after battleground-district Republicans spent months resisting a formal inquiry — leading his predecessor to backtrack and start the investigation unilaterally.
“This is an important step. The impeachment power resides solely with the House of Representatives. If a majority of the House now says we’re in an official impeachment inquiry … that carries weight. That’s going to help us get these witnesses in,” Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said ahead of the vote.
Republicans are months into their impeachment probe, which has largely focused on the business deals of Joe Biden’s family members. While they’ve found evidence of Hunter Biden using his last name to bolster his own influence and poked holes in some previous statements by the White House and the president, they have yet to find direct evidence that the president’s official decisions were meant to benefit family businesses.
Even as Republicans inch toward making Biden the fourth president to ever be impeached, they are trying to draw a bright line between their vote on Wednesday and any eventual vote on impeachment articles.
Instead, GOP leaders have rallied their ranks behind the formal inquiry. That’s in part because of a letter the White House recently sent to congressional Republicans, citing a Trump-era Justice Department opinion to state that their requests are invalid without a formalization vote.
At the time, the Trump DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel was pushing back on then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) decision to launch an impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump without initially voting on it. Republicans blasted Pelosi’s strategy at the time.
“I was reluctant to do the inquiry because he was providing information. Now, if he's going to stop providing the information, I think we have no choice but to do it.,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.).
Republicans got unexpectedly complete unity on Wednesday as Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a conservative who is retiring at the end of next year, supported a move that he had publicly criticized.
Buck has been one of the most vocal critics of his conference’s investigation, calling it “impeachment theater” and reiterating this week that he still does not believe his colleagues have found a direct link from Joe Biden to Hunter Biden’s business deals. Still, he voted yes.
He said after the vote that he still doesn’t see a link between Hunter Biden’s business activities and Joe Biden, but that he spoke with other members who stressed the vote was about investigating, not impeaching.
“I’m irritated that the White House sent that letter back. … I'm irritated that Hunter Biden comes to the Capitol and then doesn't go in,” Buck said.
The vote to formalize the inquiry comes just hours after Hunter Biden skipped a closed-door deposition for which Republicans had subpoenaed him to appear. Instead, he spoke briefly with reporters outside of the Capitol, but did not take any questions — reiterating his offer to testify in public and slamming Republicans.
“Instead of doing anything to help make Americans’ lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies," Joe Biden said in a statement after the vote. "Instead of doing their job on the urgent work that needs to be done, they are choosing to waste time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts.”
Now that Republicans have formalized their inquiry, investigators say they will try to compel Hunter Biden a second time to appear behind closed doors. They’re also vowing to hold him in contempt of Congress if he continues to resist the subpoena, as they prepare to get pulled into a court battle over their investigation.
Republicans are planning to sue to enforce their subpoenas against two DOJ tax officials, and they could also end up in court over their push to talk to a former White House counsel. In addition, the party is still waiting for documents it sought from the National Archives, which turned over new records just this week.
The White House has defended its compliance, noting in a recent memo that — between the administration, banks and private individuals — Republicans have received tens of thousands of financial documents and conducted dozens of hours of interviews.
Democrats are criticizing Republicans for moving forward to formalize their inquiry when some of their own members have acknowledged they haven’t yet met the bar for impeachment.
“A mountain of evidence and deluge of independent reporting, including from numerous conservative outlets, have discredited every single allegation leveled by Republicans against President Biden in their painstaking and fruitless inquiry,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), his party’s top member on the Oversight Committee.
Olivia Beavers contributed.