The White House fired back at Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday after the Republican told reporters that talk of impeachment is a “scam” by Democrats to raise money and gin up their base.
“Well if that’s the case then I suspect that there may be members of the Republican conference that didn’t receive the memo,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at his daily briefing, proceeding to rattle off a list of Republicans who have floated impeachment.
“We’ve seen comments in recent months from Congressman Steve King from Iowa, Congressman Ted Yoho from Florida, Congressman Lou Barletta from Pennsylvania, the distinguished Congressman Steve Stockman from Texas; his fellow Texan Blake Farenthold has raised this prospect. We’ve even seen Kerry Bentivolio from Michigan call this a dream come true. I think that was about 9 or 10 months ago,” Earnest said. “So that’s an indication that if the case then maybe the Speaker should direct that attention and that message to members of his own conference.”
Democrats’ campaign committees are exploiting talk of impeachment for fundraising, openly bragging that they’ve raised millions of dollars off the issue. They’ve portrayed Boehner’s intention to sue Obama as a precursor to impeachment.
Boehner insists otherwise.
“We have no plans to impeach the president. We have no future plans,” he said on Tuesday. “Listen, it’s all a scam started by Democrats at the White House.”