Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is urging Republicans to focus on impeaching President Joe Biden — and forget about going after other “irrelevant” government officials.
His suggestion comes after Kevin McCarthy first threatened an impeachment inquiry against the president this week, sending shockwaves through the party.
Biden now joins Attorney General Merrick Garland and Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas as the third potential impeachment target Republicans are eyeing since winning Congress six months ago.
McCarthy has consulted with Gingrich about Biden’s impeachment prospects, according to two sources familiar with the talks. Gingrich was Speaker of the House in 1998 when President Bill Clinton was impeached.
The former speaker, who said he would not comment on his private conversations with McCarthy, told DailyMail.com that he favors moving forward with an investigation of Biden — and warned the House GOP not to waste time on Mayorkas and Garland.
‘They are irrelevant. Don’t bother,” he told DailyMail.com. “Save it for the big one.”
Gingrich has urged Republicans to focus on President Joe Biden and forget about other White House officials after Kevin McCarthy’s threats of an impeachment inquiry sent shockwaves through the party.
But Gingrich later told the Washington Post that impeaching the president and removing him from office would be a “terrible idea” because it would put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge, whom he called “incompetent.”
When Republicans took control of the House, they vowed not to “politicize” the impeachment process, as they had accused Democrats of doing to twice-imposed former President Donald Trump.
This week, McCarthy threatened a formal impeachment inquiry against President Biden, but urged his rank and file not to jump too quickly.
The speaker insisted he was not “announcing” an impeachment inquiry when he said the Biden investigations are “rising to the level of an impeachment inquiry” — but will decide whether to do so based on the level of cooperation he sees from federal agencies in requests for information.
The House GOP leadership has emphasized that the reason for launching an investigation would be to give more weight to subpoenas in their investigation of the Biden family’s shady business deals — and to stop the to bypass the Ministry of Justice.
Conference chair Elise Stefanik went further Thursday morning, telling Fox Business she would “absolutely” support an impeachment inquiry into the president.
But Mayorkas and Garland are not quite free yet.
Just before McCarthy shook up the conference and threw Biden into the impeachment mix, the House GOP’s largest caucus — the 173-member Republican Study Committee — called for Mayorkas to be impeached.
Several House Republicans have already filed articles of impeachment against the Secretary of Homeland Security – accusing him of being “negligent” in his duty to secure the southern border.
McCarthy insisted he was not ‘announcing’ an impeachment inquiry when he said the Biden investigations are ‘rising to the level of an impeachment inquiry’
Gingrich says “don’t bother” ripping off AG Garland or DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas
On Wednesday, Mayorkas testified before the Judiciary Committee in what was at one point expected to be the unofficial kick-off of his impeachment proceedings. Instead, calls to oust him were muted.
And the chairman of the judiciary, Jim Jordan, said days ago that his commission could move “at a pretty quick pace” to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland, given two whistleblower testimony that the DOJ is investigating Hunter. Biden ran sluggishly and allowed the statute of limitations to run out tax crimes for political purposes.
Garland has said he was not involved in the investigation of the president’s son.
Impeachment of a cabinet official is largely symbolic — two-thirds of the Senate would have to vote to convict to remove someone from office.
So Republicans could move forward with: impeaching Biden on corruption charges or for his dealings with the border, impeaching Mayorkas, or impeaching Garland.
But can they really try? drop three people off at once?
“Republicans will realize you only get one bite of the apple,” a Republican House insider told DailyMail.com. “Everyone knows who Biden is — maybe 50 percent of the country has heard of Garland, even less of Mayorkas. And the border is not as sexy as corruption.’
On Wednesday, Majority Leader Steve Scalise opposed this.
“We’re continuing to get the facts out and we can do all these things at the same time,” Scalise insisted in response to a DailyMail.com question about combining three impeachment inquiries at once, “while we’re moving the legislative agenda, including appropriations.’
When asked if it would be better to move forward with a Biden impeachment inquiry into border or corruption charges, he insisted the House could do both. ‘It’s not a substitute for anything. We believe that we can do many things at the same time.’
“That’s ridiculous,” a senior House GOP aide replied.
“All these investigations have to go through the judiciary, so you’re going to tell me the House Judiciary Committee is going to spend eight months impeaching people? That’s the rest of the legislative schedule.’
But Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green said he will continue his five-pronged investigation into Mayorkas that he will submit to the Judiciary Committee.
“It is my job to continue my investigation,” he told DailyMail.com. Asked if several investigations can take place at the same time: ‘oh absolutely.’
Mainstream Republicans are divided on who to impeach — a sure sign that a possible Biden investigation is in its early stages.
“I would hope everyone would unite around one and do this in order. I believe it would be a little presumptuous to go after three people at once,” Representative Max Miller, an Ohio Republican and former senior Trump aide, told DailyMail.com.
Miller said he thought it was “somewhat likely” that the president had committed serious crimes and misdemeanors, but impeaching Garland would be the strongest argument.
“I’d start with Merrick Garland first, because I believe we live in a two-tier court system.”
Last week, two IRS whistleblowers testified that the Justice Department slowed its investigation into Hunter Biden and deliberately let the statute of limitations expire for some of his financial crimes.
Virginia Rep. Bob Good, a member of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, said all three officials “deserve” to be impeached, but taking out Biden would get to the heart of his complaints.
“Garland, Mayorkas are clearly implementing President Biden’s policies. If they were removed, the president could very well replace them with individuals who would carry out the same policies,” he said.
He said impeaching the president before the border could be an even stronger case.
“I would say that never in the history of the country has the president done more to harm the US than what this president has done to the border. How do we keep him going for another year and a half? We don’t need any further investigation for that,” Good told DailyMail.com.
“Having said that, I also think we’re about to expose the biggest political scandal in the country’s history,” he said, referring to Biden’s corruption allegations.
Representative Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. — who introduced impeachment articles for Biden about the border crisis last month — said she doesn’t care if it’s about the border or about the corruption allegations, as long as there’s a vote to impeach the president.
“I want a positive or negative mood,” Boebert told DailyMail.com. “I’m fine with everything.”
A positive or negative vote is a possibility that is almost certainly out of the question — listing moderates with a vote to impeach the president without a formal inquiry would be an easy way to lose a slim majority in 2024.
Multiple Republicans, leaving their weekly conference meeting, said the speaker had urged them to be careful about talking about Biden’s possible impeachment, aware of the political bondage it will entail for members of the swing district.
“He warned against jumping to conclusions about impeachment — that we wish we followed the investigation wherever it goes,” said Rep. Kevin Hern, leader of the Republican Study Committee.
“I think the Speaker has been very consistent in what he has said over the past few weeks and that is that we need to do our research, unlike the Democrats who jumped to conclusions without even due process.”
GOP strategist John Feehery said Republicans should be careful impeachment would not mobilize Democrats in the next election.
“It doesn’t matter who they deposed, history shows that it usually set fire to the base of the party that deposed you.
“The more people they talk about impeaching, the less effective it is as a tactic. Because of the very real concerns about corruption that the Biden family brings, I would focus on him. The other two are just incompetent,” he told DailyMail.com.
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