House Republicans Kick Biden Impeachment Resolution to Committees

House Republicans voted Thursday to refer an impeachment resolution to a pair of congressional committees, stalling an effort to quickly remove President Joe Biden from office.

The 219-208 vote sends the measure to the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, which will continue to investigate the Biden administration. The Oversight and Accountability Committee has also been probing bribery allegations against the president and his family.

House GOP leaders preferred the route of allowing committees of jurisdiction to do their work as opposed to Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colo.) attempt this week to force a floor vote on whether to oust Biden.

Still, Boebert framed it as a victory for House Republicans.

“For the first time in 24 years, a House Republican-led majority is moving forward with impeachment proceedings against a current president,” she said in a floor speech. “This bill allows impeachment proceedings to proceed through the traditional institutional channels by building a body of evidence at the committee level through the committees on Homeland Security and the Judiciary, reporting out impeachment based on the evidence and then the House adopting a resolution so that when a trial occurs in the Senate, there is an existing evidentiary record to rely upon when holding President Joe Biden accountable.”

A divisive impeachment vote this week would’ve been a difficult one for GOP members who represent districts Biden won in 2020, all of which are top targets for Democrats to flip in 2024.

Some Republicans also openly questioned exactly what the president would be impeached for had such a vote occurred this week. In her remarks, Boebert argued Biden should be ousted for “lawlessly” ignoring the nation’s immigration laws and “allowing an invasion to take place across our southern border.”

The ramped-up impeachment push came as House Republicans have cried foul this month at what they contend is a two-tiered justice system, one that has long targeted former President Donald Trump — who faces 37 felony counts related to his alleged mishandling of classified information — while allowing Biden’s son, Hunter, to agree this week to a plea deal and no jail time.

House Democrats twice impeached Trump, once in late 2019 for reportedly pressuring Ukrainian President Voldomyr Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son and again in 2021 for inciting an insurrection. Trump was acquitted in the Senate both times.

House Republicans this week also voted to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the lead impeachment manager during the chamber’s first effort to remove Trump from office. Schiff, a former chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, was removed from the panel this year. He has used both incidents to raise money for his campaign to succeed retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs the oversight panel, suggested Republicans have a higher standard for impeachment than Democrats did during Trump’s administration.

“Democrats have done a lot of damage. People like Adam Schiff have done a lot of damage to the credibility of congressional investigations,” Comer told The Messenger. “They’ve done a lot of damage to the whole motion of impeachment. Like it always is when Democrats go in and mess things up, it’s up to Republicans to try to go in and clean up the mess, and I think that’s what we’re doing.”

At a news conference Thursday morning, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said that the House GOP’s determination “to impeach without justification President Joe Biden will backfire because all it will do is highlight that they have no plan, no vision, no agenda to address the challenges that the American people are confronting.”