The White House is going to war against the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden announced by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
“House Republicans have been investigating the President for nine months, and they’ve turned up no evidence of wrongdoing,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner. “His own Republican members have said so. He vowed to hold a vote to open impeachment, but now he flip-flopped because he doesn’t have support. This is extreme politics at its worst.”
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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has called the allegations against the president “baseless.” The main catchphrase for the rest of Biden’s team is “no evidence,” their variant of former President Donald Trump’s “no collusion.”
Trump features prominently in the Democrats’ impeachment countermessaging too. “Republican leaders are caving to Marjorie Taylor Greene and the MAGA Right, which is insisting on either a ridiculous government shutdown or a farcical impeachment exercise,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement. “What a choice they’re handing America.”
“Well, I tell you what, I don’t know quite why, but they just knew they wanted to impeach me,” Biden himself told donors during a fundraiser in McLean, Virginia. “And now, the best I can tell, they want to impeach me because they want to shut down the government.”
Biden was in the Senate during former President Bill Clinton’s brush with impeachment and battles with Republicans over federal spending and government shutdown, so some of the counterarguments are encores of those golden oldies.
“So look, look, I got a job to do,” Biden said. “Everybody always asked about impeachment. I get up every day, not a joke, not focused on impeachment. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got to deal with the issues that affect the American people every single solitary day.”
That the White House would oppose Biden’s impeachment is hardly a surprise. But given the near certainty he would be acquitted by a Democratic-controlled Senate and the inquiry’s uncertain fate even in the Republican House, it’s possible that the matter does not require a full-court press.
“I’m surprised to see how seriously the Biden folks are taking this impeachment stuff,” GOP strategist Liz Mair wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “They clearly want to use it to impeach (haha see what I did there) Rs’ credibility, but by treating it seriously instead of as a joke, they’re risking people treating it like… not a joke.”
A CNN poll already found that 61% believe Biden had at least some involvement in his son’s business activities and 42% think he acted illegally. Those numbers before an impeachment inquiry begins are unsettling for the White House and its allies.
“My gut is that it would be better to respond with ‘clown caucus run by people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, clown move from people like Marjorie Taylor Greene,’” Mair concluded.
The White House has tried to play up Republican dissenters on the impeachment inquiry, which include both centrists disproportionately representing districts Biden carried and conservatives who fear that this is an attempt to placate them ahead of concessions to Democrats on spending.
But the main line the White House is driving home is that many Republicans don’t think the evidence of Biden benefiting financially from his son’s activities has reached the point where they can justify impeachment. In a memo to media outlets, the White House highlighted a “senior House Republican aide” telling Politico, “We haven’t proven the case for impeachment yet. How can you start impeachment? We haven’t done what you need to do to start impeachment.”
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The White House has historically avoided commenting on anything relating to Hunter Biden beyond expressing the president and first lady’s love and support for him as he recovers from substance abuse problems. Impeachment has already forced them to engage on these matters more than they ever have before, while maintaining there is nothing to the allegations directly involving the president.
“For years, Republicans in Congress have tried to muddy the waters by attracting media coverage of their allegations, and as they choose to move forward with impeachment, it is the responsibility of the independent press to treat their claims with the appropriate scrutiny,” a White House impeachment memo states. “Covering impeachment as a process story — Republicans say X, but the White House says Y — is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable.”
