MAGA congressman admits: 'I don’t think we ever' had the votes to impeach Biden

21 March 2024

It appears that House Republicans' campaign to impeach President Joe Biden is on its last legs after a stunning admission from Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee).

During an interview on NewsNation, host Dan Abrams asked Burchett if he agreed that "the impeachment inquiry [into President Joe Biden] is basically over." Burchett didn't dispute that sentiment.

"We're not gonna have the votes. That's clearly the case. I don't think we ever did," Burchett said. "I think you had a few Republicans that would have pulled out, a bunch have just left us in the middle of their terms or just before the end of their terms, I think it'd be very questionable whether we can get the votes."

"This thing is going nowhere. You and I both know it," he added.

Burchett sits on the House Oversight Committee, where chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) has been leading a multi-year effort to impeach Biden based on the overseas business dealings of his son, Hunter. However, Comer has so far failed to find any smoking gun evidence directly linking Biden to any "high crimes and misdemeanors" that would justify an impeachment vote.

The largest blow to the impeachment inquiry may have been the revelation that Republicans' biggest piece of evidence against the Bidens turned out to be a fabrication. A major claim in an FBI 1023 report (for confidential informants) that Joe and Hunter Biden each allegedly solicited a $5 million bribe from Ukrainian officials was found to have been a lie. The source of that report — 43-year-old Alexander Smirnov — was indicted for lying to federal investigators, and the FBI further alleged that Smirnov was in contact with "high-ranking" officials within Russian intelligence agencies.

Burchett himself wrongly assumed the 1023 report was credible, telling Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo last year that "We've shown them the evidence. I don’t know what else you need other than President Biden coming on the news saying: 'Hey, I’m a crook. I took this money. I took these bribes.' I mean, what else do they need? There’s just too much evidence in it. And it’s all documented.”

Prior to going public with the allegations against the Bidens, the FBI privately warned Congress that the claims within the 1023 report could not be verified and should be taken with a grain of salt.

"The mere existence of such a document would establish little beyond the fact that a confidential human source provided information and the FBI recorded it," FBI acting assistant director Christopher Dunham wrote in a May 2023 letter. "Indeed, the FBI regularly receives information from sources with significant potential biases, motivations and knowledge, including drug traffickers, members of organized crime or even terrorists."

And as Burchett told Abrams, the Republican majority — which was already small after the 2022 midterms — has continued to shrink with a wave of retirement announcements and sudden exits. Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) already left Congress earlier this year to accept a job as president of Youngstown State University, and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colorado) will be leaving the House at the end of this week before lawmakers are due to leave Washington for a scheduled recess.

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