House Republicans are expected to vote Wednesday on their resolution to formalize an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden as their investigation reaches a critical juncture and right-wing pressure grows.
The vote comes as a potential showdown between House Republicans and Hunter Biden is also expected to come to a head on Wednesday, as the president’s son has been subpoenaed to appear for a closed-door deposition and is in Washington, DC. It is not yet clear if Hunter Biden is going to sit down and answer questions from lawmakers who want to interview him as part of their escalated impeachment inquiry.
Up until this point, House Republicans have not had enough votes to legitimize their ongoing inquiry with a full chamber vote. The probe has struggled to uncover wrongdoing by the president, which is why it hasn’t garnered the unified support of the full GOP conference.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally launched the inquiry in September, even though he had previously criticized Democrats for taking the same step in 2019 when they launched the first impeachment probe of then-President Donald Trump without taking a vote at the beginning.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team are now confident they have enough support to pass the vote when it comes to the floor on Wednesday.
That is in part because when the White House told the trio of GOP-led congressional committees leading the investigation that its subpoenas were illegitimate without a formal House vote to authorize the inquiry, reluctant, more moderate Republican lawmakers started to get on board with their party’s investigative efforts. The Trump administration made a similar argument against House Democrats at the start of his 2019 impeachment.
The argument from Republican proponents of the effort, according to multiple GOP lawmakers and aides, is…
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