A Trump-era Justice Department opinion could hinder the House Republican Party in its impeachment inquiry unless Speaker Kevin McCarthy votes on it.
A 2020 opinion for the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel determined that impeachment investigations are invalid without the vote of the full House of Representatives.
McCarthy has long insisted he would use the investigation to give more weight to subpoenas in the Republican Party’s investigation into the Biden family business dealings, but with the DOJ opinion still on the books, the Biden administration could use it to refuse to comply until the House votes on the investigation.
McCarthy changed course on Tuesday, announcing that the impeachment inquiry into President Biden had been formally opened — less than two weeks after he said a vote would be needed to initiate proceedings.
A Trump-era Justice Department opinion could hinder House Republicans in their impeachment inquiry unless Chairman Kevin McCarthy votes on it
His argument was that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had changed the precedent by launching an investigation into Donald Trump without a vote.
“(W)e conclude that the House of Representatives must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and use a mandatory procedure in that investigation before the committee can compel the production of documents or testimony,” wrote Steven Engel, then head of the DOJ office. of legal counsel, in support of Trump’s rejection of subpoenas by Democratic investigators.
Pelosi unilaterally called an impeachment inquiry in September 2019 and conducted the investigation for five weeks before it was voted on by the full House to establish standardized rules and procedures.
Then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone intervened in the House investigation and hinted that Trump would not comply with the subpoenas because no formal vote had taken place. Pelosi passed a formal resolution to begin impeachment proceedings in late October.
“Never in the history of our nation has the House of Representatives attempted to initiate an impeachment inquiry against the President without a majority of the House taking political responsibility for that decision by voting for such a dramatic constitutional step,” Cipollone wrote on October 1. 8, 2019.
McCarthy unilaterally announced an investigation into President Biden on Tuesday
Engel concluded that all subpoenas issued before the October 31, 2019 vote were invalid.
“The Constitution vests the ‘sole power of impeachment’ in the House of Representatives… For precisely that reason, the House itself must authorize an impeachment investigation, as it has done in virtually every prior impeachment investigation in our nation’s history, including each involving a president,” he wrote.
The impeachment is expected to scrutinize the actions of the Justice Department, FBI and IRS in investigating Hunter Biden and his formal business dealings, alongside the Biden family. All three agencies would be bound by the OLC advice.
McCarthy told Breitbart in an interview published in early September that an impeachment inquiry “would happen through a vote in the House and not through a statement from one person.”
But when he abruptly changed course on Tuesday, no one on the Republican side seemed to mind.
“She changed that,” McCarthy said, blaming Pelosi for the reversal. ‘That’s how you do that. So I warned her not to do it that way during the process, and that’s what she did, so that’s what we do.”
The speaker was likely trying to spare moderate Republicans from districts Biden won in 2020 after a controversial vote.
“Having spent my career as an NYPD detective, I know the value of seeking the truth through finding the facts, and I would like to know exactly what the truth is behind the allegations surrounding President Biden.” said GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, from a battleground district in New York.
“I think there should be a vote, but I’m willing to go ahead with it,” said Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., a frequent McCarthy critic who endorses his impeachment proceedings.
“It was all made possible because a precedent was set, and people can thank Nancy Pelosi for that. So the impeachment inquiry has been launched and I’m happy about that,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told DailyMail.com.
Republican Rep. James Comer, chairman of the oversight committee, said the next steps would be to subpoena more banking records from the Biden family. None of the evidence discovered so far has directly linked payments to President Biden.