by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) began agitating to impeach President Biden almost as soon as he took the oath of office. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a Greene ally and supporter of former President Trump, rhetorically caught up this week.
He says a House impeachment inquiry examining Biden and Hunter Biden would help dislodge evidence allegedly blocked by the administration. McCarthy, who has done nothing to discourage Freedom Caucus vows to try to impeach the attorney general and some Cabinet secretaries, is fanning a narrative long favored by Trump and others on the right that the Bidens are crooks.
McCarthy has dangled the idea that House Republicans may vote this fall to expunge Trump’s two House impeachments. He says he has made no promises. Similarly, he endorsed a Biden impeachment inquiry during a Fox News interview Sunday, heading into the final week before GOP lawmakers exit Washington until after Labor Day.
While catering to his right flank, the Speaker hopes to leave matters vague enough to protect moderate Republicans, who grumble that a looming potential government shutdown after Sept. 30, coupled with talk of impeachment votes, would not be well received by voters in swing districts. Senate Republicans are similarly lukewarm about both possibilities.
The Hill: In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, McCarthy put no timeline on starting an impeachment probe and urged members not to overstate the evidence obtained so far.
“This is not anything vulnerable Republicans want to talk about on the campaign trail. They want to focus on all of those issues that have [President] Biden’s popularity so low and not be pulled into some Trump loyalty blood oath,” Doug Heye, a national Republican strategist, told The Hill.
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a Freedom Caucus member, accused McCarthy of “impeachment theater,” asserting that he wants to distract from intra-party clashes over spending limits and the budget. “What he’s doing is saying there’s a shiny object over there and we’re going to focus on that, we just need to get all these things done so we can focus on the shiny object,” Buck told CNN on Wednesday.
I don’t think it’s responsible for us to talk about impeachment. When you start raising the ‘I’ word,’ it starts sending a message to the public, and it sets expectations,” Buck added.
Hunter Biden, now a larger-than-life GOP political target ahead of the 2024 elections, found Wednesday that his scheduled plea deal is on hold on charges of two misdemeanor tax violations and a separate felony gun charge.
Judge Maryellen Noreika delayed a decision on whether to accept a plea agreement between federal prosecutors and the president’s son — demanding that the two sides make changes to clarify her role and insert language that limits the broad immunity from prosecution offered to Hunter Biden related to some business dealings. His lawyers estimated it would take about two weeks to work through (The New York Times and The Hill).
Justice Department prosecutor Leo Wise told the court that there is an “ongoing investigation” involving Hunter Biden, suggesting it is related to past business dealings and possibly the Foreign Agent Registration Act. Asked for more information by Noreika, Wise said he was “not in a position where I can say” (Axios).
The White House did not comment (The Hill).
The Hill’s Niall Stanage, The Memo: Hunter’s headlines create political bind for Biden.
