Rep. Scott Fitzgerald says he's ready to move straight to a Joe Biden impeachment vote
WASHINGTON – With House Republicans set to formalize their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden as soon as Wednesday evening, one Wisconsin congressman wants to take things a step further: an actual impeachment vote.
Rep. Scott Fitzgerald told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he thinks Republicans have sufficient evidence to vote to impeach Biden and initiate a trial in the Senate — a position that puts him at odds with his party’s leadership, who feel more investigation is needed.
“If it was up to me, we would,” Fitzgerald said of taking a formal House vote to impeach the president. “Based on the briefings that we’ve had in closed conference… I think there’s more than enough information there to vote in favor of impeachment to start the trial in the Senate.”
Fitzgerald, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, which with the Oversight and Ways and Means Committees is tasked with investigating Biden, suggested that the attempts from Republicans on those panels to link the president to the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden, convinced him that the president is guilty of a crime.
But Republicans have yet to produce concrete evidence that Biden committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
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The House GOP has been investigating the Biden family for months, and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in September announced the launch of the inquiry without taking a House vote. The planned vote late Wednesday to authorize the inquiry was expected to be largely a formality.
Asked this week on what grounds Fitzgerald would like to see Biden impeached, the Juneau Republican’s office did not cite specific charges. But a spokeswoman pointed to allegations from the GOP that Biden used his influence to meddle in dealings connected to his son’s role at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, loans between Biden and his son and brother and payments to bank accounts purportedly associated with the president.
Fitzgerald’s desire for an impeachment vote, however, puts him out front of many in his party, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who say Republicans are still in the investigative phase of the impeachment process. Many in the party have said an impeachment inquiry is necessary to find evidence of wrongdoing and acknowledged that they are still working to find just that.
“We can’t prejudge the outcome,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters Tuesday. “The Constitution does not permit us to do so. We have to follow the truth where it takes us, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Johnson acknowledged that people “are frustrated sometimes with the time that’s being invested in this” but suggested building their case against Biden is not a fast process.
“There shouldn’t be any such thing as a snap impeachment, a sham impeachment like the Democrats did against President Trump. This is the opposite of that,” Johnson said. “And that’s why people are getting restless — because they want things to happen quickly. If you follow the Constitution and do the right thing, you cannot rush it. You have to follow the facts.”
All six Wisconsin Republicans in September indicated support for their party’s impeachment inquiry. But members at the time told the Journal Sentinel that they were on board with the inquiry as a means to more deeply probe Biden's connections to his family's business dealings. Reps. Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden in September said they would not prejudge the case.
On Tuesday, Tiffany made similar comments. “It’s important to do the inquiry first,” Tiffany said. “It gives additional investigative abilities to be able to get more information… I think process is important with something like this.”
Democrats, meanwhile, have rejected the GOP investigation into Biden as a sham and labeled the effort retaliatory after Democrats twice impeached former President Donald Trump, including for his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
“Obviously the Republicans have no other program and they figure this is their best shot is to (sic) create a dark cloud over the Biden family and hope that that affects (the 2024 election),” Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who sat on the select committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol, told reporters Monday evening.
Fitzgerald’s office on Tuesday said the 5th Congressional District Republican still supports the impeachment inquiry “to help remove any legal ambiguity” in Republicans’ investigation as they say Biden has been uncooperative due to lack of a formal inquiry vote.
But Fitzgerald still maintained that House Republicans could move to impeach Biden now.
“I’m convinced right now,” he said, “that there’s more than enough information.”
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Scott Fitzgerald says now is time for Biden impeachment vote