IMPEACH-Y KEEN The House voted moments ago to formalize an impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden, thus inserting the chamber into what is already shaping up to be a tumultuous presidential election year. The 221-212 vote played out along party lines. All Republicans — including Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who was initially against the vote — supported the investigative resolution, which is aimed at beefing up the House’s ability to secure evidence and testimony. The upshot is this: When lawmakers come back from their holiday recess next year, the impeachment inquiry will be in full force alongside the first presidential primaries, Biden’s pivot to reelection and potentially former President Donald Trump’s first criminal trial. The timeline: How long it will take for House Republicans to move toward an actual impeachment of Biden is unclear. The Oversight and Judiciary committees are planning additional depositions and could schedule future public hearings. Investigators are hoping to make a decision about whether or not to pursue and draft articles of impeachment by late January. That roughly corresponds to the 48 days it took for House Democrats to move to a final impeachment vote against Trump in 2019 after voting to formalize their own inquiry. The exact timing, of course, is fluid, and it might well depend on what evidence investigators can turn up to prove their allegations that Biden profited from his family’s foreign business dealings. With a three-seat margin that is expected to shrink, Republicans will need almost complete unity, and several members believe they have yet to prove their case. Republicans have strong evidence that son Hunter Biden used his last name for his own personal profit, and they have poked holes in previous statements by Joe Biden and the White House. But they haven't yet found a direct link between decisions Joe Biden made in office and his family's business deals. A political backdrop: When Democrats moved to impeach Trump in 2019, Republicans accused them of wanting to hurt Trump’s reelection efforts. (The second time Trump was impeached, Biden had already won the election.) Now Republicans are facing the same accusations of politicization, and the deeper into 2024 the probe goes, the more potent those attacks could seem. That doesn’t seem to bother many in the House GOP. “We're never more than 18 months from an election around here, between the last one and the next primary, or whatever,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) said. “If you want to put everything in terms of elections every time, then you wouldn't do anything around here.” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) — who wants to impeach Biden over issues at the southern border, not his family’s business ties — said turnabout is fair play. “I think when Democrats impeached Trump, that opened a Pandora's box where impeachment could be used as a political tool, and I don't think that box has been closed,” Gonzales said. “There's no doubt in my mind that politics in Washington have changed, and they changed when Democrats went down the partisan route of impeaching Trump.” Meanwhile in the Senate: Should the House follow through with impeachment, it would set up a Senate trial — one where Biden would be all but certain to be acquitted by the chamber’s Democratic majority. And if Republicans think that a trial might put pressure on the endangered Senate Democrats who are seeking reelection next year, well, they aren’t showing it. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said he’s “not a bit” concerned about the political implications of the inquiry in an interview, adding of House Republicans: “I’d much rather they’d attend to business that really needs to be done.” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) also derided the impeachment as “games they’re playing” and said the House would be better off “taking care of Ukraine, taking care of fentanyl … [and] going after China the way that we promised to do and the way they talk about.” — Daniella Diaz and Anthony Adragna, with assist from Jordain Carney
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