Will Biden impeachment inquiry impact shutdown fight? Here's what House GOP says
WASHINGTON – House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ordering an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden Tuesday comes as the California Republican is juggling a daunting task ahead of him – funding the federal government.
McCarthy must consolidate differences between the more moderate wing of his conference with his right flank of ultra-conservative lawmakers like those in the House Freedom Caucus who have threatened to leverage a shutdown in exchange for deep spending cuts.
The impeachment inquiry, in part meant to appease those conservatives, is now another task for McCarthy to juggle as Congress races to avert a shutdown with just 10 working days left before the Sept. 30 deadline. McCarthy has argued an inquiry is a “logical next step” in House Republicans’ investigation into unproven allegations Biden benefited from the foreign business dealings of his son, Hunter.
Those conservatives, however, say the impeachment inquiry is unrelated to funding the government and their push for long coveted spending cuts.
“There are two different things. We're adults. We should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a member of the Freedom Caucus, told Paste BN Tuesday evening. He later added, “There's nothing wrong with Congress looking at that while we're also doing our job of making sure that we are funding the government in an appropriate way.”
Other House Freedom Caucus members echoed similar sentiments.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., also a member of the caucus, told Paste BN that an impeachment inquiry changes none of the calculus from conservatives in negotiations on funding the government and averting a shutdown.
“They have nothing to do with each other, absolutely nothing,” Clyde said of the impeachment inquiry and the appropriations process. “I’m here to make sure that our government spends its money responsibly and impeachment is a completely separate matter.”
Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., accused McCarthy in a statement of a “ploy to coerce members” into supporting a spending package without deep cuts.
“This is reckless government, and I will not be pressured by such tactics,” Rosendale said.
Another member of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., told Paste BN the inquiry is “not at all” a distraction from the appropriations process and that he will still seek the cuts conservatives have been demanding.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a conservative who serves on the House Rules Committee, which is considered the gatekeeper of all legislation in the House, is not a member of the House Freedom Caucus. But Massie told reporters Tuesday he is not as passionate about the impeachment process as he is about the appropriations bills that still need to be passed.
“It definitely affects the number of things we can get done,” Massie, who also serves on the House Judiciary Committee, said of the impeachment inquiry. “It's going to consume a lot of bandwidth. It's going to consume a lot of public attention and a lot of our time in Judiciary, but I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Moderate GOP lawmakers defend inquiry: 'We can walk and chew gum'
House GOP leadership and the more moderate wing has defended the inquiry, saying it is unrelated to the appropriations process and the ongoing spending fight.
“We're not using it as a distraction. This is a completely different parallel path to the spending side and funding the government,” Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., chair of the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of House Republicans, told reporters Tuesday. “Some would argue that this distracts us from doing our job (of) funding the government. It does not, not at all.”
Rep. Marc Molinaro, R-N.Y., a vulnerable House Republican occupying a district Biden won in 2020, repeated a similar phrase of some of his colleagues.
“We can walk and chew gum,” he said. “And we ought to.”