Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has decided to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden that his predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, launched. So, the House of Representatives will vote this week on the inquiry, and if he can whip the small Republican majority in line, the inquiry can be formalized and move forward.
Speaker Johnson then appeared on Fox News Channel to describe why he wants to formalize the inquiry before moving forward with the matter, telling FNC host Chad Pergram that he wants to make it clear that the GOP is committed to the “rule of law” rather than just wielding what power it has to harm its political opponents.
Commenting on the matter, Speaker Johnson said that the big issue with the non-formalized impeachment inquiry is that the investigations have “come to this impasse” as they poke deeper into President Biden’s business dealings with his son Hunter. Particularly, he said that the investigators are “hitting a stone wall because the White House is impeding that investigation.”
He argued the White House was impeding the investigation by not allowing witnesses to come forward and withholding thousands of pages of documents. Formalizing the process would help the House push past that impasse and compel the Biden Administration and related entities to hand over the documents it demands and allow witnesses to come forward.
Speaking to Pergram on what he sees as the necessity of formalizing the inquiry, Speaker Johnson said, “We have no choice to fulfill our constitutional responsibility. We have to take the next step. We’re not making a political decision. It’s not. It’s a legal decision.”
Continuing, he added that the inquiry is about following the truth, not blindly attacking political opponents, saying, “So, people have feelings about it one way or the other. We can’t prejudge the outcome. The Constitution does not permit us to do so. We have to follow the truth where it takes us and that is exactly what we’re going to do.”Emphasizing that point, he said, “[T]his is the way the Founders anticipated that something like this would go.”
He then went on to say that the process should be deliberate, unlike what was done to former President Trump, saying, “There shouldn’t be any such thing as a snap impeachment, a sham impeachment like the Democrats did against President Trump. This is the opposite of that. And that’s why people are getting restless, because they want things to happen quickly. If you follow the Constitution and you do the right thing, you cannot rush it. You have to follow the facts.”
Again emphasizing the rule of law aspect, he said, “We’re not going to prejudge the outcome of this. We can’t because, again, it’s not a political calculation. We’re following the law, and we are the rule of law team. And I’m going to hold to that as my commitment.”
Featured image credit: By Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Mike Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=139920652
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