House votes to refer Biden impeachment resolution to committee
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The House votes to send a resolution proposed by Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado to the House Rules Committee on Thursday.
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Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., during a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing on Capitol Hill, in Washington on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023 (AP)
The House voted Thursday to send a resolution proposed by Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado to the House Rules Committee, thus halting an effort to bring a privileged motion to the floor that would have compelled members to vote on whether to impeach President Joe Biden.
The rule was approved along party lines.
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Last week, the congresswoman introduced articles for the impeachment of the US President for his violation of the constitutional oath, as she believes he has failed at securing the US southern border.
She tweeted that "Joe Biden has totally failed at his Constitutional duty to secure our Southern Border. For that reason, I have just introduced articles of impeachment to remove him from office."
House Republicans were divided on Boebert's resolution, with several members unhappy with Boebert's effort to compel a vote on the highly charged topic.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy urged his Republican colleagues to vote no on the resolution.
According to Boebert, although she is a "sophomore congresswoman", she expressed that nothing happens without force, citing her push to force her colleagues to "make tough decisions."
Boebert previously told Fox News that she plans on fast-tracking the process by filing the legislation under a privileged motion in case the House's leadership and committees do not move forward with the articles she introduced.
CNN reported that McCarthy urged in a closed-door conference on Wednesday that Republicans should let committee investigations play out before moving through with impeachment, warning that doing so now may jeopardize their slender majority, according to numerous individuals in the discussion.
He told reporters afterward, “I think to prematurely bring something up like that, to have no background in it, it undercuts what we’re doing."
Mark Green, House Homeland Security Chairman, stated that Biden will be a focus of the investigation and that there will be digging into the actions of the president "in conjunction with what’s happened."
Green would not say if he feels Biden's actions on the border reach the level of high crimes and misdemeanors for impeachment, but he did indicate it will be part of the investigation.
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Republicans have asked for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to be impeached for the administration's handling of the border, and the committee has already initiated an inquiry. Green stated that Biden's conduct will be factored into the investigation.
If she feels the committee is not doing its probe promptly, Boebert has vowed to trigger a vote on impeaching Biden.
“If I don’t see accountability taking place with Joe Biden in a timely manner – and no, I don’t have a date, deadline – but if I see that this has been slow rolled and nothing is moving on it, then there’s always the option to bring up another privileged resolution and call to impeach Joe Biden,” she explained.
