December 12, 2023 11:53 AM UTC

Neguse Calls out "Intellectual Dishonesty" as House GOP Moves Toward Biden Impeachment Vote

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Colorado Rep. “CNN Ken” Buck, who has never made a decision that he didn’t reconsider several times a day, is now wavering on authorizing an impeachment inquiry. As Raw Story explains, Buck told CNN’s Erin Burnett that he doesn’t think there is any reason to attempt to impeach President Biden…but on the other hand, the White House did send a mean letter to somebody. Here’s the clip that Buck’s own staff posted to his YouTube channel:

BUCK: “I’m struggling right now, I have to tell you. On the one hand, I have come out strongly and said there’s no direct evidence linking President Biden with the activities of Hunter Biden. And at the same time, the White House recently sent a letter after these committees issued subpoenas to the White House, the White House sent a letter back and said, ‘You haven’t held an impeachment inquiry vote yet, and we’re not gonna give you any records until you pass an impeachment inquiry.

“I think that’s an absolutely wrong position, and a delay tactic, which would necessitate Congress going to the courts and having the courts enforce the subpoena. So, I wish the White House wouldn’t have done that. I don’t think there is direct evidence. I’m struggling, and I want to read the resolution before making a final decision on whether to vote for it or not.”

We must have missed that part in the United States Constitution where it says that impeachment is reserved for “high crimes and misdemeanors and mean letters.”

Ken Buck truly believes in nothing.

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House Republicans are apparently dead-set on initiating a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden, despite the fact that many of these same Republicans openly admit that they have absolutely no legitimate evidence to present in such a case.

As Axios reports today:

House Republicans are securing the support they need to pass a resolution on Wednesday formalizing their impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

Republicans say an official vote authorizing the inquiry will give them stronger standing to enforce subpoenas in coming court battles.

Several Biden-district Republicans who previously voiced skepticism of impeachment told Axios on Monday they plan to vote for the inquiry.

It looks like this 14-page resolution will come up for a floor vote tomorrow (Wednesday). As of now, the resolution is expected to pass…although 17 incumbent Republicans who represent districts that Biden carried in 2020 are surely gobbling up antacids today. Republicans are likely going to vote to move ahead with an impeachment inquiry even though there is growing consensus that this is all nonsense.

As Newsweek explains:

Representative Don Bacon is still planning to vote to formalize a Joe Biden impeachment inquiry, despite telling reporters that he doesn’t believe there’s evidence that the president committed high crimes or misdemeanors—the bar set for impeachment.

The Nebraska Republican said Tuesday that although there’s no evidence to actually impeach President Joe Biden, he supports the vote to authorize an inquiry, [Pols emphasis] which House Republicans argue will allow them to better enforce subpoenas in their investigations of the president’s purported involvement in his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Here’s what Bacon said specifically, according to The Messenger:

“Probably not,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told reporters on Tuesday morning when asked if Biden committed high crimes or misdemeanors. “They’re getting millions of dollars off the Biden name … that’s not to say there was a crime by the president.” 

As NBC News reports, Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck is the lone voice of reason for the GOP at the moment:

Speaker Mike Johnson, who recognizes that many GOP members don’t believe Biden has committed impeachable offenses, has presented the upcoming vote as an attempt to continue the investigation with more powers.

Many seem convinced by that argument. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., told NBC News last week he believes he is the only Republican planning to vote no.

Today in the House Rules Committee, where an impeachment resolution must be finalized before a floor vote, Colorado Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse — who was one of the House impeachment managers in the second impeachment trial against former President Donald Trump — spoke out passionately about his frustrations with a process that is clearly being driven more by politics and fundraising than by the Constitution:

NEGUSE: “Perhaps the most frustrating element of this exercise is the intellectual dishonesty to pretend that this is anything but a fait accompli. There isn’t a single one of you who is going to vote against impeachment if articles are brought to the floor four weeks from now, eight weeks from now, [or] 12 weeks from now. So, pretending as if this is just somehow is just a very simple step forward to approve a perfunctory or cursory process is not level-setting with the American people. [Pols emphasis]

“[Impeachment] is one of the most solemn votes that any of you will take in your careers. I suspect none of you have voted in the past to initiate an impeachment inquiry. So, treating it in this cursory way, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Rep. Guy Reschenthaler] apparently wants the American people to believe, as I said, is inconsistent with the constitutional nature of impeachment, the weightiness of impeachment and proceeding on this course, and I would hope it would give some of you some pause. It’s clear that that hasn’t been the case.”

Neguse continued later:

“Any Republican that votes for this resolution is voting for a process that would allow the Oversight Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the Ways and Means Committee to conduct an impeachment inquiry entirely in secret…that’s never been done before.”

Neguse was much more subdued today than Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett was on Monday, as The Hill newspaper reports:

Crockett dubbed some of her Republican colleagues “idiots” and “assholes” alongside criticism of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s attempts to launch a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden…

…“The Oversight Committee is where all the drama is. This is where the impeachment inquiry is,” Crockett, who is a member of the committee, told “The Breakfast Club” host Charlamagne tha God on Monday. “And, you know, it’s insulting that we have idiots like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, Jim Jordan. I mean, you just name all of the nonsense Republicans.”

It’s hard to disagree with Crockett here. “Idiots and assholes” plan to move forward with an impeachment investigation into President Biden for reasons that nobody can actually articulate. That’s absolutely on-brand for House Republicans.