House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is pushing to launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden without a formal vote in the United States House of Representatives to protect his vulnerable members in swing districts from taking a tough vote — and, according to a new report from Politico’s Playbook, from the wrath of former President Donald Trump.
As the latest edition of Playbook notes, “Trump — who has been breathing down McCarthy’s neck to charge forward with a Biden impeachment — has suggested he’d use an impeachment vote to smoke out any MAGA-skeptical Republicans and support primary opponents against them.”
Many of the impeachment-skeptical Republicans hail from districts that were won in 2020 by President Joe Biden, which means that primarying them with hardline MAGA candidates would likely doom the party’s chances of holding those seats in 2024, thus ending McCarthy’s term as Speaker of the House after just two years.
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However, a senior GOP aide tells Playbook that this plan could still run into trouble given the lack of evidence to back up wild allegations of Biden taking bribes from foreign officials.
“We haven’t proven the case for impeachment yet,” the aide explained. “How can you start impeachment? We haven’t done what you need to do to start impeachment. There is no way we’d get the votes.”
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