U.S. Rep. Greg Pence, R-Indiana, speaks to business leaders during an Aug. 2022 Aspire Legislation Matters luncheon at Valle Vista Golf Club and Conference Center in Greenwood.
Rep. Greg Pence, R-Ind., on Wednesday joined his Republican colleagues, voting in favor of authorizing an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden despite lingering concerns among some GOP members that the investigation has yet to produce evidence of misconduct by the president.
The House voted 221-212 along party lines to support an impeachment process that can lead to the ultimate penalty for a president: punishment for what the Constitution describes as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which can lead to removal from office if convicted in a Senate trial, The Associated Press reported.
Biden, in a rare statement about the impeachment effort, questioned the priorities of House Republicans in pursuing an inquiry against him and his family, according to wire reports.
“Instead of doing anything to help make Americans’ lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies,” the president said following the vote. “Instead of doing their job on the urgent work that needs to be done, they are choosing to waste time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts.”
Authorizing the inquiry ensures that the impeachment investigation extends well into 2024, when Biden will be running for reelection and will likely to be squaring off against former President Donald Trump — who was twice impeached during his time in the White House and is now facing 91 felony charges across four criminal cases.
Trump has pushed his GOP allies in Congress to move swiftly on impeaching Biden, part of his broader calls for vengeance and retribution against his political enemies, according to wire reports.
The decision to hold a vote came as Speaker Mike Johnson and his team faced growing pressure to show progress in what has become a nearly yearlong probe centered around the business dealings of Biden’s family members, according to the AP. While their investigation has raised ethical questions, no evidence has emerged that Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president.
House Democrats remained unified in their opposition to the impeachment process, saying it is a farce used by the GOP to take attention away from Trump and his legal woes.
While Republicans say their inquiry is ultimately focused on the president himself, they have taken particular interest in Hunter Biden and his overseas business dealings, from which they accuse the president of personally benefiting, according to wire reports. Republicans have also focused a large part of their investigation on whistleblower allegations of interference in the long-running Justice Department investigation into the younger Biden’s taxes and his gun use.
Hunter Biden is currently facing criminal charges in two states from the special counsel investigation. He’s charged with firearm counts in Delaware, alleging he broke laws against drug users having guns in 2018, a period when he has acknowledged struggling with addiction. Special counsel David Weiss filed additional charges last week, alleging he failed to pay about $1.4 million in taxes over a three-year period.
Wednesday’s vote was the third time that the House has launched an impeachment inquiry since Pence has been in office. Pence was not supportive of the previous two impeachment inquiries — both against Trump.
Trump was impeached in 2019 after pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for “a favor,” all while withholding $400 million in military aid to help confront Russian-backed separatists — just over two years before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Trump was later acquitted in the Senate.
Pence characterized the first impeachment inquiry against Trump as a “partisan power grab” and a “sham.”
Kyle Robertson, a Pence spokesman at the time, said by “partisan power grab,” Pence was “referring to the House Democrats that have been trying to impeach President Trump for over two years and essentially overturn the 2016 election results.”
“This is just the latest attack on the president in order to achieve power,” Robertson said. “Democrats want to undermine his agenda so they can replace it with a hyper-partisan impeachment agenda.”
In December 2019, Pence told The Republic criticized plans by House Democrats to draft articles of impeachment against Trump as a “political ploy.”
“I’m disappointed. I believe it’s a sham,” Pence said in a phone interview in December 2019. “…I don’t think the president did anything wrong.”
Pence also voted against impeaching Trump on a charge that he incited a deadly insurrection against the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while lawmakers were gathered to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump was impeached for the second time on Jan. 13, 2021, but was once again acquitted in the Senate.
“Today I voted against impeaching President Donald Trump,” Pence said in a statement in January 2021. “The president has made it clear he will support a peaceful transfer of power on January 20th to President-elect Joe Biden. It is time to move on, heal and put our focus into where it truly helps the American people: recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and restoring our economy.”
By Andy East, of the (Columbus) Republic, a sister newspaper to the Daily Journal.
