Republicans have been privately admitting defeat on their whole bogus impeachment inquiry for some time now. Last week, the New York Times reported that House GOPers have begun plotting a new strategy to save face: sending criminal referrals to the Justice Department against President Biden and those close to him.
House Republicans have reportedly been acknowledging privately that they don’t have the evidence or even the votes within their own ranks to charge President Biden with high crimes and misdemeanors, according to the Times. So, they’ve been considering sending letters to the DOJ, requesting that prosecutors investigate crimes they think have been committed by Biden, his family and/or his associates.
Per the Times:
The move would be largely symbolic, but it would allow Republicans in Congress to try to save face while ending their so far struggling impeachment inquiry. It has the added appeal for the G.O.P. of aligning with former President Donald J. Trump’s vow to prosecute Mr. Biden if he wins the election.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer hinted that Republicans may be moving in this direction during a recent interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
“At the end of the day, what does accountability look like? It looks like criminal referrals. It looks like referring people to the Department of Justice,” he said. “If Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice won’t take any potential criminal referrals seriously, then maybe the next president, with a new attorney general, will.”
Today, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a member of the House Oversight Committee, dared her Republican colleagues to admit to the emptiness of their crusade during an actual impeachment inquiry hearing. Ocasio-Cortez brought up the fact that the former FBI informant, whose information has served as a basis for the Trump retribution crusade guised as an impeachment inquiry, was arrested for lying to the FBI about supposed bribes Biden accepted as vice president to benefit his son, Hunter Biden.
She then pressured her colleagues to actually name a crime for which they want to impeach Biden.
“At this point, the story isn’t the fact that the basis of this impeachment inquiry is wrong. The story is, ‘Why it is proceeding anyway?’” she asked, adding that her Republican colleagues have “no charges.”
“I have yet to hear in the chairman’s opening the allegation that they are specifically charging the president of the United States with. I am hearing about the ‘Biden family.’ I am hearing about this and that. I am not hearing the specific allegation by this committee. What is it? It is not here. And that is the problem,” she said.
“The story is when this committee knew they were working with falsified evidence? That is the story.”
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