By Arjun Singh
House Republicans plan to hold a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives regarding an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, according to comments from several members to the Daily Caller News Foundation on Friday.
House Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden on Sept. 12 without a vote of the full House, with a mandate to gather more information pending further action, such as a vote on articles of impeachment. On Friday, after a House Republican Conference meeting to discuss the issue, several House Republicans indicated that they plan to vote upon expanding the inquiry on the floor of the House, perhaps as early as the following week, according to their comments.
“We certainly ought to vote to continue the inquiry and have a formal vote to ensure that we’re having the impeachment inquiry as a body and I hope we will do that soon,” said Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas to the DCNF. “I want to be sooner rather than later. We’ve gotta, you know, keep working to socialize with the conference. We want to follow the facts wherever they lead.”
“We need to lay out all the facts,” said Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida. When asked about a vote, he said that he “think[s] it’ll come to that at some point.”
“I think we’re gonna be calling for a vote of the House to on a formal impeachment inquiry,” said Republican Rep. Carlos Giménez of Florida to the DCNF.
“I do think we’re gonna be dealing with it. We will come time later in the week. Next week, for sure,” House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole told reporters.
Parallel investigations into Biden’s family, specifically the foreign business dealings of his son Hunter Biden — who was indicted on Sept. 14 for three alleged firearm-related felonies — have been conducted by the House Judiciary Committee, House Oversight Committee and House Committee on Ways and Means. The Oversight Committee chairman, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, indicated that his committee would be releasing a report documenting its findings as part of the process.
“As soon as we get through with the deposition and get all the emails, the pseudonym emails and all the [other] emails that we’ve requested, everything that the White House has obstructed … once we get that and we get all the depositions, then we will do the report,” said Comer to reporters, referring to a planned deposition of Hunter Biden before the committee. Hunter Biden had previously offered to testify in a public hearing, though that offer was rejected by Comer and the committee’s Republicans.
“You’re talking about a white guy from an influential family that has told the IRS the FBI and the DOJ to go fly a kite. He’s not going to tell the House Oversight Committee that. He will have the deposition and then the public hearing,” Comer said.
Comer indicated that he is not, presently, whipping a vote on the floor regarding the inquiry. However, he noted that his committee is the primary venue for investigations into Biden regarding his impeachment, saying that “the inquiry will be the Oversight Committee. If it gets to impeachment, then that will be Judiciary.”
“House Republicans have collected an extraordinary amount of evidence in their investigation of Hunter Biden’s business activities,” read a memorandum from House Oversight Committee Democrats discovered by the DCNF in a U.S. Capitol Building hallway. “And this evidence comes on top of evidence collected by Senate Republicans who conducted their own investigation of Hunter Biden in 2020.”
“I think our conference went home last week and they heard from people at Walmart, people on Main Street, who were like, ‘Find out the truth about Joe Biden’s knowledge and involvement in his family shady business games,’” Comer said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.