While Republicans have considered other paths to antagonize the White House for months, those plans have taken on fresh importance as a vote to impeach seems doomed.
House Republicans are increasingly acknowledging that they don’t have the votes to impeach President Joe Biden, leaving them in search of other ways to antagonize the White House.
While some Republicans insist they could still take up formal articles of impeachment, they’re not close to the near-unanimous support to recommend booting him from office. And no bombshell moment emerged out of Tuesday’s high-profile hearing with former Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur, though Hur’s testimony managed to cast Biden in a negative light by exploring his mishandling of classified documents.
But Republicans are determined not to give up on a push that’s still a high priority for the GOP base — especially since abandoning it altogether could alienate conservatives they need to turn out in November. So they’re exploring backup options to keep the spotlight on so-far-unproven allegations that Biden misused the public offices he’s held to benefit his family’s businesses.
Those Plan Bs include legislative reforms like tighter financial disclosure and foreign lobbying guardrails; criminal referrals for Hunter Biden and others to the Justice Department; a potential lawsuit for DOJ officials’ testimony and calls from some within their conference to just keep investigating, pushing the probe closer to Election Day.
Any of those off-ramps come with risks of their own — namely that they require cooperation from the Senate or the Justice Department — but, the current GOP thinking goes, Republicans would at least have something to show to their anti-Biden voters with their thin majority on the line.
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As Biden impeachment stalls, House GOP turns to backup plans https://t.co/mk7OYZ4gpF
— POLITICO (@politico) March 13, 2024
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