Kevin McCarthy Says Impeachment Inquiry Will Require a Floor Vote: Is He Slow-Playing or Avoiding it Altogether?

The differences between Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and his predecessor Nancy Pelosi go far beyond Republican versus Democrat. Pelosi had nothing and rapidly moved to impeach President Trump twice. McCarthy has everything and is taking forever to impeach Joe Biden.

It’s telling that McCarthy’s latest statement about impeachment came late on a Friday. That’s the magic moment in politics when announcements are made or press releases are dropped to get them the least amount of attention from the media.

According to Breitbart, McCarthy is only going to launch an impeachment investigation into Biden once the House votes to do so. By comparison, Pelosi simply announced she was launching investigations and had an actual vote on it months later with the first impeachment of Trump.

Breitbart, which appears to support McCarthy’s strategy, posted:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made clear to Breitbart News on Friday that if House Republicans move forward with an impeachment inquiry into Democrat President Joe Biden, the move would come not as an announcement from him or anyone else, but from a formal vote on the floor of the House.

“To open an impeachment inquiry is a serious matter, and House Republicans would not take it lightly or use it for political purposes. The American people deserve to be heard on this matter through their elected representatives,” McCarthy told Breitbart News. “That’s why, if we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person.”

Doing so would require a majority—at least 218 votes, assuming the House is at full attendance for such a vote—of members of the House to vote for such a move. While opening a formal impeachment inquiry is not a vote to impeach the president, it is a massive escalation by the lower chamber of Congress towards doing so—and it would also provide the House with extraordinary new investigative and law enforcement powers in terms of compelling testimony, enforcing subpoenas, and digging into Biden’s behavior and the culture of corruption surrounding the president.

Let’s be crystal clear so there’s no ambiguity. The House GOP has bank records, plus a massive number of damning emails, text messages, and whistleblowers to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that then-VP Biden and the entire Biden Crime Family participated in felonious crimes against America.

Pelosi had a single partisan whistleblower and a perfectly fine phone conversation when she launched her investigation.

As Bonchie at Red State noted, it seems like McCarthy is trying to run out the clock on the Biden presidency without launching an impeachment:

I hate to be the cynic here, but this is McCarthy taking an out on impeachment, likely ensuring it will never take place. By contrast, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the 2019 impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump from the floor.

All of this hemming and hawing by McCarthy and the House GOP is intentional. Whether to somehow enhance their own political careers or to defend the UniParty Swamp, they’re doing nothing but talking about impeachment. They’re pretending like they’re doing all of this talking as preludes to action when in reality they’re just talking in lieu of action.

And they’re probably going to get away with it. Why? Because far too few Republicans are demanding action now. Sure, we may hop on social media and whine about the feckless GOP, but there’s no real accountability. They’re on track to avoid impeaching Biden or at least delaying it until after the 2024 election. This is unacceptable.

IF there is an impeachment, it needs to be soon. The only way I see that happening is if the outcry from the people is loud enough. Even then, our representatives on Capitol Hill no longer listen to the will of the people. Perhaps they never really did, but at least they pretended in the past. Today, they constantly take actions that the people don’t want. They do this with no remorse. They do this with no fear of repercussions.

I’m hopeful that we can make our voices heard, not because I believe it’s true but because to accept that it’s not true is to acknowledge that our government is fatally flawed. Many already believe it is, but I’m not quite ready to accept that. Call me an optimist but I’m going to continue to scream at them until someone tells me to shut up.

Scream along with me or otherwise express your opinion in the comments on my Substack.