Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are blasting House Republicans for proposing to authorize their impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden.
The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters on Tuesday that the White House is allegedly “stonewalling” an investigation into Biden’s family’s financial business pursuits by not permitting witnesses to come forward.
Those witnesses include Hunter Biden, the president’s son, James Biden, the president’s brother, and other officials close to the matter.
CBC chairman U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., said Republicans “don’t have an agenda here.”
“This is the most ineffective Congress led by House Republicans. They are doing nothing to focus on the issues that the majority of Americans care about: lowering costs on housing, childcare, healthcare,” said Horsford.
He added, “They want to dismantle the very investments that we made when Democrats were in control of the House and in the Senate.”
U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., told theGrio, “I think it’s ridiculous.”
“They’re making a mistake because I think the American people and many moderate Republicans and independents know that this is just another part of the extreme MAGA Republicans agenda that doesn’t make sense,” he explained.
Meeks continued, “There’s been no evidence worthy of moving forward with an impeachment inquiry.”
U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., said the investigation led by House Republicans, which has not resulted in any evidence of illegality or wrongdoing by President Biden, is “unfortunate.”
“As we waste time on [the impeachment inquiry], we’re not spending time on affordable housing, healthcare, gun violence – the things that people really care about,” Frost told theGrio.
During a recent Fox News interview, House Speaker Johnson said an impeachment inquiry is “a necessary step.” Johnson said the House committees did an “extraordinary job of following the evidence where it leads.”
“But, now we’re being stonewalled by the White House because they’ve prevented at least two to three DOJ witnesses from coming forward…the White House has withheld thousands of pages of evidence,” he added. “I think it’s something we have to do at this juncture.”
Some GOP House members believe that formally authorizing the impeachment inquiry into President Biden is the next step before proposing impeachment articles against the Democratic leader.
U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., said the six-hour-long first impeachment inquiry hearing held in September was “pretty much a complete disaster.”
“They had three expert witnesses who basically told them what the impeachment standard was and told them they didn’t have enough evidence to meet the standard,” Ivey told theGrio.
Congressman Frost said he was “quite surprised” that Republicans moved forward with the impeachment inquiry, saying, “I thought they learned their lesson, but obviously not.”
“You should not start an impeachment inquiry if you have absolutely no evidence. There’s not a shred of evidence here,” he added. “They want to impeach him because he’s a Democrat. They’re going to find anything they can find. They’re going to manipulate it and make it seem like evidence.”
Frost continued, “All people should know is there is no evidence right now that connects the president to any wrongdoing here.”
Some CBC members believe House Republicans are using the impeachment inquiry as a distraction.
“They’re having trouble getting anything else done,” said Congressman Ivey.
“There’s not really much there. Sadly, we have four emergency supplementals that have been sitting on the table waiting to be addressed, and they’re not getting to it,” he said, referring to the $105 billion requested by Biden to fund Ukraine’s military defense in its war against Russia, Israel’s war in Gaza, security for the U.S.-Southern border and security defense for Taiwan.
When asked on Wednesday about the impeachment inquiry after delivering remarks urging Congress to pass the supplemental spending bills, President Biden called the allegations against him a “bunch of lies.”
CBC Chairman Horsford said Republicans “don’t have a legislative agenda,” adding, “They have to distract attention toward these unfounded impeachment inquiries.”
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga, similarly told theGrio, “They’re desperately looking for a distraction to divert the American people’s attention away from the fact the House Republican Conference has been totally ineffective in moving any legislation that benefits the people of America.”
On the contrary, Senator Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., told theGrio that Democrats in Congress are getting things done and are “focused” on helping Americans live better lives.
“I’m proud of the work that we’ve been able to do this Congress and last Congress. Lowering costs, [including] prescription drugs [and] investing in American manufacturing,” he said.
“It’s high time we had folks who are focused on the people rather than the most craven-hell politics that we’re seeing over in the House,” Warnock added. “It would be laughable, except there are people who have real issues and are trying to make their lives work. It’s not funny at all.”
House members are slated to vote on an impeachment inquiry next week. They need a simple majority vote to pass the resolution. If passed, the resolution would more than likely fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, told theGrio, “Whether there’s an informal impeachment inquiry vote or not, they’re still in the same predicament, which is that they still don’t have anything.”
“They have searched through over 30,000 pages of bank records, and they have been investigating Hunter Biden since Trump was in office,” said Crockett, a member of the House Oversight Committee.
“But when we look at [former New York Congressman] George Santos, they were able to quickly find out that this guy was a fraud as they perused through his bank records,” she added.
“I think it’s very telling that we can’t just take the time to work on what the American people are looking for, which is more solutions,” said Crockett. “Instead, they just continue to hand out more problems.”
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