Biden impeachment inquiry vote planned for next week

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/-biden-impeachment-inquiry-vo…

House Republican leaders are planning a vote to formalize their impeachment inquiry into President Biden next week.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Tuesday that the plan is for the House to vote to authorize the inquiry next week, the last scheduled week in session before lawmakers leave for a holiday recess. Other GOP sources familiar with the plans told The Hill the same.

“The House has no choice if it’s going to follow its constitutional responsibility to formally adopt an impeachment inquiry on the floor so that when the subpoenas are challenged in court, it will be at the apex of our constitutional authority,” Johnson said in a Tuesday press conference.

“This vote is not a vote to impeach President Biden. This is a vote to continue the inquiry of impeachment, and that’s a necessary constitutional step,” Johnson said.

The move to a formal vote comes months after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declared a swath of House GOP investigations to be an impeachment inquiry in September — a reverse of the stance he took during the first Trump-era impeachment when he said it needed to be kicked off with a formal vote.