Biden impeachment push dies quietly as House GOP shifts focus to Harris

House Republicans released their long-awaited impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden with little fanfare on Monday as the weight of their investigative focus turns to the Democrats’ new party standard-bearer, Vice President Kamala Harris.

A trio of GOP-led committees spent more than a year attempting to prove that Biden abused his office to engage in an influence-peddling scheme that enriched his family and their associates. But their investigation suffered a series of setbacks, including the indictment of an FBI informant central to their inquiry.

The push for impeachment, facing skepticism from centrist Republicans in the House, had already lost steam in the weeks before Biden exited the presidential race. Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the Oversight Committee chairman who helped lead the investigation, conceded in March that a criminal referral was more likely than an impeachment vote.

But Biden’s decision not to run for a second term gave the GOP even less reason to make a show of their report. They did not back away from their claim that Biden engaged in impeachable conduct, a claim disputed by Democrats and the White House, but the report was announced in the middle of a congressional break without a press conference.

“The Democrats already impeached him … and ran a bus over him,” one GOP lawmaker told the Washington Examiner. “I’m sure most of us are focused on winning.”

The report comes as Democrats prepare to nominate Harris at their convention in Chicago. Biden, who was pressured to step aside following his disastrous debate performance in June, will deliver an address on Monday, the first night of the convention.

Democrats seized on the timing of the report, with Oversight ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) calling it “a last-minute face-saving gesture” that only served as a “Banana Republican cream pie they have just pressed into their own faces.”

“If there is any merit to the tiny and barely audible plea for impeachment of President Biden, why are the Republicans doing nothing about it?” Raskin said. “No one has fallen for this package of lies and propaganda.”

Meanwhile, Republicans have begun opening a slew of investigations into Harris and her newly announced running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN).

Comer announced an investigation into Harris’s role as the Biden administration’s “border czar,” an informal moniker given to the vice president in 2021 and now rejected by the White House. Harris also faces an impeachment effort from Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) over that role. 

Walz, for his part, faces scrutiny from the House Armed Services Committee over how he has represented his military record in the National Guard. The Oversight Committee, led by Comer, also announced an inquiry last week into Walz’s ties to China. 

But even as the focus shifts to the new Democratic ticket, not all Republican lawmakers are ready to move on from Biden. 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has pushed for years to impeach Biden, called on her GOP colleagues to act on the newly released report, arguing the GOP majority “should have already impeached Biden.”

“But that doesn’t take away from the damning nature of this report and the hard work that has been put into producing it,” Greene said in a post on X. “This report shines a light on just how corrupt Joe Biden and the Biden crime family have been for years and years. Selling Joe’s political influence to line their pockets while selling out our country. These crimes must not go unpunished.”

It’s not clear whether Greene would attempt to tie Harris to any forthcoming impeachment articles, although the Georgia Republican made clear she views the president complicit in the alleged impeachable offense included in the report.