Republicans Nervous Over Intersection of Shutdown and ‘Meritless’ Impeachment Inquiry
Star witness admitted that evidence for impeachment doesn't exist
House Republicans are starting to go public over their worry that a “meritless” impeachment inquiry against President Biden is moving forward even as they seem powerless to stop the impending federal shutdown.
The Republican-led House held their first hearing in their freshly launched impeachment inquiry against Biden, in which even the Republicans’ star witness admitted that there's no evidence that President Biden's committed any crimes.
And Republicans look preoccupied with that effort as they can't pass any of the spending bills necessary to avoid a shutdown of the federal government this weekend.
House Republicans are alleging — without evidence — that as vice president Joe Biden cooperated with his son Hunter in a huge corruption and bribery scheme.
They were handed an embarrassing setback Thursday during their first hearing into Biden's potential impeachment when law professor Jonathan Turley, a witness invited by House Republicans, testified that he did not believe the current evidence presented against the president warrants articles of impeachment.
“This has been an impeachment in search of a reason for being. Jamie Raskin had it exactly right, it was a Seinfeld of impeachments: Impeachment about nothing,” Rep Adam Schiff said (D-Calif), referring to Democratic colleague, Rep Jamie Raskin of Maryland. “It’s also such a stark juxtaposition of this meritless impeachment inquiry, taking place, wasting time, while we’re just a couple days away from a shutdown of the federal government.”
Fox News host Neil Cavuto, too, was unimpressed by the Republicans’ impeachment kickoff.
“But when you begin to trumpet what you have as the beginning of an explosive inquiry into the president of the United States to potentially remove him from office, you think you’d bring your A-game,” he said on-camera Thursday. “Maybe this is part of a pattern and a legal process of which I’m totally unfamiliar. Guilty as charged. But this took over six hours today, my friends. Over six hours. I wonder.”
Working with one of the tiniest majorities in history, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been unable to get far-right members of his own Republican Party to agree to fund the government beyond this weekend.
“Once you start using the word ‘impeachment,’ you have set expectations with a large percentage of the American public. Those expectations are not being met that at this point,” said Republican Rep Ken Buck of Colorado, a former prosecutor. “It would’ve been much wiser to have continued the investigations, and if you get information that links President Biden and Hunter Biden’s activities, then you start talking about impeachment.
“They came out of the box way too early. I don’t know if it was intended as a distraction for the upcoming shutdown or certainly continuing resolution we have to pass, or whether it was just a bad play,” Buck added. “But, it’s not a good idea to have these two things come together at the same time in my opinion.”
Buck said that the politics worry him.
“It concerns me about House Republicans priority, also concerns me about the public perception of our party being able to run the U.S. House,” he said. “I think there is nothing worse than a shutdown. I think this is an embarrassment. We knew that September 30 was coming for a long time. We should have been talking in July about a continuing resolution. It doesn’t have to be done on the eve of a shutdown.”
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