House Republicans contradict Kevin McCarthy's vow not to play politics with impeachment

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy claimed Thursday that the Democratic majority had played “politics” by impeaching former President Donald Trump, and vowed that if Republicans regain control of the chamber after the midterm elections, they will not do the same. But much of his caucus has already contradicted that claim.

At a press conference on Thursday aimed at convincing voters to give them a majority in the next Congress, House Republican leaders said that if they win, they will focus on enacting a series of right-wing policies.

“We just went through four years of watching a political impeachment,” McCarthy (R-CA) said. “We watched four years where we learned even today that Adam Schiff first lies to the American public, now we find that he went to freshmen, to those Democrats to write that article, because they knew Nancy Pelosi would move for impeachment and it was all predetermined. We will uphold the law. We will not play politics with it. But we’ll do whatever in the nature that the rules and facts take us to.”

McCarthy himself has previously not been above using House oversight powers for political purposes.

Exactly seven years ago, he bragged to Fox News host Sean Hannity that his party had used a series of investigations into a 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, expressly to hurt Democratic former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton politically.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping,” McCarthy said. “Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought and made that happen.”

House Republicans have already introduced 14 separate impeachment resolutions against President Joe Biden and members of his administration, according to an Axios analysis.

This includes nine separate articles of impeachment against the president, and others against Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Several House Republicans have said these impeachment attempts will be a top priority for any GOP majority in 2023.

“On Day One, my colleagues and I will be looking to impeach President Joe Biden, Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Attorney General Merrick Garland,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) tweeted earlier this month. “All three are in dereliction of their duties. We have the resolutions ready to go.”

“The GOP majority needs to investigate the DOJ, but that’s just the start,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) said in August. “We need to fire the political actors within the DOJ, and we need to impeach AG Garland. Anything less will not restore the confidence of the American people in this agency.”

“If any upcoming Republican Majority doesn’t commit to impeach[ing] Mayorkas, we don’t deserve the power of governance,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweeted in March.

Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) told Axios on Friday that Republicans could use the mere threat of impeachment to force the Biden administration to accept Trump’s extreme immigration policies. “A fair tradeoff: we won’t pursue impeachment, but you go back to Trump border policies that were working,” he proposed.

Trump was repeatedly impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, including obstruction of Congress and incitement of insurrection.

During both of Trump’s impeachments, House Republicans including Boebert and Biggs blasted the process as a “waste of time.”

The impeachment attempts against Biden have mainly focused on political differences. Most attempts have centered on criticism of his immigration policies, his unsuccessful attempt to extend an eviction moratorium during the pandemic, and his decision to honor Trump’s agreement to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed a resolution baselessly claiming that Biden abused his prior office as vice president “through enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors by allowing his son Hunter Biden to influence the domestic policy of a foreign nation.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.