House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to support Biden impeachment inquiry
UPDATE (8:50 AM): House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced Tuesday that he has directed a House committee to start a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
The move give additional legal authority into the GOP led House's investigations into the president's son hunter and other members of the Biden family.
During a late morning news conference outside the speaker's office, McCarthy said the inquiry is the logical next step for those investigations.
"The American people deserve to know that the public offices are not for sale under the federal government is not being used to cover up the actions of a politically associated family. Now, I would encourage the President and his team to fully cooperate with this investigation in the interests of transparency. We're committed to getting the answers for the American public, nothing more, nothing less. We will go wherever the evidence takes us."
Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker
NBC News has reported the White House is gearing up a war room to lead a response to the inquiry and House Democrats are preparing a vigorous defense.
(NBC, KYMA/KECY) - NBC News has learned that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is planning to support an impeachment inquiry of President Biden.
Two Republican sources familiar with Speaker McCarthy's intentions confirm reports that the speaker is formally endorsing an impeachment inquiry into President Biden in order to seek bank records and other documents from the president and his son, Hunter.
McCarthy plans to tell members this week that "it's a logical next step" of the GOP-led investigation that has been going on for months. The news was first reported by Punchbowl News.
The two sources confirm that House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Oversight Committee Chair Jamie Comer (R-KY) will give members an update in a meeting of the House GOP conference Thursday morning.
The move does not come as a huge surprise, since McCarthy has hinted for weeks that the House might open an impeachment inquiry to provide additional legal power for the house's investigation into Hunter Biden's business dealings.
However, it's not clear that there are sufficient votes within the GOP conference to open an impeachment inquiry at this time.
