House Republican admits there’s 'probably not' cause to impeach Biden but will vote for it anyway

12 December 2023

One of the more moderate members of the House Republican Conference recently admitted to reporters that the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is bunk, but that the political benefits outweigh the facts.

According to The Messenger congressional reporter Stephen Neukam, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) made the admission Tuesday morning to a group of Capitol Hill reporters, saying "there are 'probably not' high crimes or misdemeanors that Joe Biden has committed" to necessitate a formal impeachment.

"But he still plans to vote to authorize the impeachment inquiry," Neukam tweeted.

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Republicans have been attempting to formally impeach Biden since September, when then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) offered the impeachment inquiry as an olive branch to far-right members of his caucus upset about him working across the aisle with House Democrats to avoid a government shutdown. However, the legal basis on which Republicans want to base impeachment proceedings appears shaky.

House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) has been spearheading the House's investigation of Biden's son, Hunter, over his foreign business dealings. Comer has also sought to draw connections between Hunter Biden's overseas activity and his father's administration. However, witnesses Comer called to appear before the committee in September would not confirm that there was any criminal activity on President Biden's behalf in connection with his son.

While Comer has accused Biden and his family of making "over $20 million between 2014 and 2019," that period of time comes before Biden's election in 2020, and that the roughly 12,000 pages of bank records Comer's committee has collected from the Hunter Biden investigation doesn't show any transactions to the president. A senior GOP aide speaking anonymously to NBC News told the network "[Republicans] are losing the media narrative game to the White House right now" and that "calling witnesses that say the opposite of your narrative on impeachment is equally a bad strategy."

In November, Republicans reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) that they felt there wasn't enough of a reason to impeach Biden, citing his middling poll numbers. This prompted MSNBC columnist Ruth Ben-Ghiat — a scholar of authoritarian regimes — to accuse the House GOP of "abuse of power" and that Republicans were trying to impeach the president on "spurious grounds."

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