How House Republicans got to yes on an impeachment inquiry

Dec 13, 2023

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House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), flanked by House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), arrives to speak with reporters after the House passed a bill to formalize House Republicans' impeachment inquiry into President Biden at the U.S. Capitol.

JUST INQUIRING — Not so long ago, the prospects of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden appeared dim.

The case seemed slipshod. Centrist Republicans, many of them sitting in House districts carried by Biden, pointed to a lack of evidence. Even some who weren’t in competitive seats worried about the direction of impeachment efforts.

“Republicans in the House who are itching for an impeachment are relying on an imagined history,” wrote Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a member of the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus.

Yet with one working day left in Congress, every member of the GOP majority voted today to open a formal impeachment inquiry into the president — including Buck.

What changed between then and now? Many of the battleground-district Republicans still do not think there is enough evidence to impeach the president. But in the past month, GOP leadership has managed to whip enough votes to at least initiate the impeachment process, relying on the message that today’s action was merely a vote for an inquiry.

"As we have said numerous times before, voting in favor of an impeachment inquiry does not equal impeachment," Majority Whip Tom Emmer said during a press conference on Tuesday.

That distinction is an important one, at least in political terms. As Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who represents an Omaha-based district that voted for Biden by six points, put it recently, “I can defend an inquiry. I can’t defend impeachment right now.”

The point about defensibility is an important one since there are 18 House Republicans representing districts that voted for Biden. That’s more than enough seats to flip control of the House next year. These members are caught in the crosswinds between Republican hardliners, who very much want to impeach the president, and the many Democrats back home, who view it as a crass partisan exercise.

The members who once seemed so reluctant to go down the impeachment path now point to a contentious mid-November letter from the White House to the House GOP as justification. The letter asserted that “congressional harassment of the President to score political points is precisely the type of conduct that the Constitution and its separation of powers was meant to prevent” and questioned the House investigation’s legitimacy since they had not held a formal inquiry vote.

Not long after, in early December, Speaker Mike Johnson announced there would be a vote on the inquiry.

Republicans across the conference emphasize that today’s action is merely a vote to give the House full access to documents, interviews, and evidence needed to prove — or disprove — any impeachable offenses from the president.

“If getting more information and exercising oversight responsibility requires us to continue this inquiry, I’m comfortable continuing the inquiry,” Rep Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), who represents a district where Biden won 51 percent, told Nightly.

Left unsaid by many Republicans is that an inquiry vote also temporarily alleviates pressure from conservative hardliners back home and, for the time being, deprives potential GOP primary challengers of ammunition.

The House goes out of session tomorrow, so members will undoubtedly get an earful on the subject when they return home — particularly the 18 who will be traveling back to districts that Joe Biden won in 2020.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at mmccarthy@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @Reporter_Mia.

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What'd I Miss?

— No more witnesses in Trump fraud trial, but verdict is at least a month away: The $250 million civil trial in which Donald Trump is accused of extensive business fraud heard from its last witness today, but a verdict won’t come for at least another month. Testimony came to a close after 11 weeks of proceedings, with Attorney General Tish James’ office calling its final rebuttal witness — an accounting professor — and then resting its case. Now, the trial will take a month long break. Closing arguments are scheduled for Jan. 11.

— Fed sees lower rates in 2024 as inflation fight winds down: Federal Reserve officials today suggested that victory over inflation is within sight, signaling that they are likely done raising interest rates and that borrowing costs will go down somewhat next year. Members of the central bank’s rate-setting committee agreed to hold their main policy rate steady in their last vote of the year, a reflection of mounting data showing that price spikes continue to cool. In a sign of growing optimism that inflation is largely under control, Fed policymakers even went as far as penciling in three rate cuts for 2024.

— Bennet tries to keep Senate in to clinch Ukraine-border deal: Sen. Michael Bennet is hoping to keep the Senate in town to finish border negotiations that would unlock Ukraine aid and is willing to flex his procedural muscle to do it, according to a person close to him. The Colorado Democrat is concerned that Congress might soon leave without finishing its work to increase border security, discussions that are now tied directly to Ukraine aid. He initially held the National Defense Authorization Act, but the Senate agreed to finish that bill this afternoon. Bennet is also considering holding up other legislation, including Federal Aviation Administration extension, which needs to pass before the end of the year.

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Nightly Road to 2024

BACK ON THE TRAIL — Former President Donald J. Trump is kicking off a flurry of campaign activity today with an eye toward a decisive victory in Iowa that would crush his Republican rivals’ hopes of emerging with any kind of momentum in the presidential primary, reports The New York Times.

Trump delivered remarks in Coralville, a small city in eastern Iowa today before planned stops in New Hampshire, the second nominating state, and Nevada, third on the primary calendar, over the weekend. Trump will return to Iowa on Tuesday for a speech in Waterloo, a city in the northeastern part of the state.

But as Trump is shoring up support in the other early states, prominent surrogates will hit the ground in Iowa on his behalf in a display of the particular advantages he enjoys as the former president and the primary’s dominant front-runner.

TWO ROADS DIVERGE — Should Ron DeSantis fall short in the 2024 presidential primary campaign, there are two paths that could lay before him, writes NBC News.

In one, he could become the “MAGA heir apparent.” In the other, he could become Donald Trump’s permanent political punching bag. And allies of both men see the second one as a distinct possibility…In short, Trump doesn’t want to just beat DeSantis; he wants to end his — and perhaps his family’s — political career for good.

MEME MACHINE — A group of online meme-makers — who don’t work directly for former President Donald Trump — are nevertheless coalescing as a kind of shadow online ad agency for Trump’s presidential campaign, writes The New York Times.

Take a recent video, called “Let’s Get Ready to Bumble,” a slick mash-up of President Biden’s verbal slip-ups and his stumbles set to a thumping 1990s dance track. When it was played on a big screen at Trump rallies late last year, it consistently drew laughs and jeers from the crowd.

The former president asked an adviser to pass along a few notes to one of the video’s creators: It should include a clip of the president falling off a bicycle, he suggested, and another of him flubbing a line in a recent speech.

The video’s co-creator — Bryan Heestand, a product engineer in Ohio who goes by the anonymous handle C3PMeme — rushed to incorporate the former president’s edits. Heestand doesn’t work for Trump, but he belongs to said group of meme-makers on the leading edge of his campaign. Led by a little-known podcaster and life coach, this meme team has spent much of the year flooding social media with content that lionizes the former president, promotes his White House bid and brutally denigrates his opponents.

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AROUND THE WORLD

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stands ahead of a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Riyadh on Dec. 6, 2023.

This pool photograph distributed by Russian state agency Sputnik shows Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ahead of a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Riyadh on Dec. 6, 2023. | Alexey Nikolsky/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

MEETING OF THE MINDS — White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan traveled to Saudi Arabia today to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to two U.S. officials, reports POLITICO.

The meeting came as the Biden administration works to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from expanding into a broader conflict within the Middle East, said the U.S. officials, both of whom were granted anonymity to speak about the visit. The trip also comes as international ships in the Red Sea have come under increasing attacks by Houthis in nearby Yemen.

The U.S. views Saudi Arabia as a key partner in the region in managing those tensions, and had previously worked with the nation on efforts to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the U.S. officials said.

Saudi Arabia had been in talks to normalize relations with Israel prior to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, a process that Biden officials have since said they are eager to eventually resume.

“Before Oct. 7 our team was working very hard on normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which was going to be — we still think there’s hope here — a stepping stone to get closer to a two-state solution,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said during today’s briefing at the White House. “Everybody’s focused rightly on what’s going on in Gaza, but that doesn’t mean we’re giving up on that.”

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Nightly Number

€10.2 billion

The amount of money ($11.1 billion USD) that the European Commission unblocked in frozen EU cohesion funds earmarked for Hungary today, one day before European leaders are set to discuss new aid to Ukraine and the opening of accession negotiations for Kyiv. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has thus far opposed Ukraine’s bid to join the EU.

RADAR SWEEP

MOVIE NIGHT — Today, the Library of Congress released the 25 films that are going into the National Film Registry’s 2023 class. A distinct honor — movies have to be at least 10 years old and are selected for their lasting cultural, historic or aesthetic significance — this year films from 1955’s Lady and the Tramp to 1990’s Home Alone (a certified Christmas classic) to 2013’s 12 Years a Slave were selected to be preserved for as long as the Library of Congress is. See the full list from New York Magazine’s Zoe Guy.

Parting Image

On this date in 2007: The Mitchell Report is released, detailing widespread steroid use in Major League Baseball. Former senator George Mitchell, the author of the report, delivers his remarks at the beginning of a New York news conference on the topic.

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