Newly-sworn-in Republican Speaker Mike Johnson wants the House of Representatives to continue the impeachment inquiry started by his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, despite the lead impeachment proponent and investigator, Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer, having made clear he does not want any more hearings.
Johnson, in his Thursday interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity admitted he would support – or at least not block – an impeachment attempt against President Biden to move forward, because the base wants it.
“I know people are getting anxious and they’re getting restless and they just want somebody to be impeached,” Johnson said, as The Washington Post‘s Philip Bump reported Friday.
“But that’s not — we don’t do that like the other team,” he claimed, referring to Democrats. “We have to base it upon the evidence, and the evidence is coming together. We’ll see where it leads.”
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Bump called Johnson’s remarks “a pretty generous assessment of the process so far. Comer and his colleagues, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have repeatedly presented new allegations as proof of Biden’s wrongdoing — only to have them slowly be revealed as incomplete, misleading or unimportant. The loan repayment from Biden’s brother that Comer hyped last week is just such an example, presented as money flowing to Biden in proof of Comer’s long-standing allegations, before the nuance became obvious.”
Johnson Thursday night also told Hannity, “If, in fact, all the evidence leads to where we believe it will, that’s very likely impeachable offenses.”
But just hours earlier on Thursday, apparently having been unable to come up with any actual proof of any Biden wrongdoing, Comer took to social media to demand Biden “prove” his own innocence.
Chairman Comer, the post reads, “calls on President Biden to prove that the $200,000 he received from his brother was a loan and that all applicable IRS filings were properly made.”
Pointing to the Post’s reporting, the Biden Campaign’s Ammar Moussa served up this response: “Incredible. James Comer’s first ‘hearing’ went so poorly he doesn’t want to hold any more.”