WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — At the request of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Republicans will hold a conference meeting Thursday to discuss starting an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, a GOP leadership source confirmed to NewsNation.
House Oversight Chairman Jim Comer, R-Ky., is expected to speak and present the findings from the committee’s investigations into the Biden family banking records, which might serve as the basis for the impeachment inquiry, a separate GOP source confirmed.
McCarthy has been tiptoeing through a political minefield as he weighed whether to open an official impeachment inquiry into the president.
Former President Trump, with whom McCarthy has kept a good relationship, has also exerted public pressure to pursue impeachment without a long inquiry. So have voters in the GOP base, Republicans say.
But moderate members of McCarthy’s conference questioned whether there was enough evidence to launch an inquiry, and the chance that any impeachment effort could backfire politically. Plus, the Speaker can only afford to lose a handful of GOP votes on a resolution to open an inquiry, assuming all Democrats oppose the effort.
One GOP lawmaker — Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — said she will not fund the government unless a Biden impeachment inquiry is opened.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), for his part, expressed confidence that the votes are there to launch an impeachment inquiry.
McCarthy has repeatedly said that he will not pursue impeachment for “political purposes,” instead arguing that it is a “natural step forward” following a stream of information released by House GOP investigators over the summer about the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.
As talk of impeachment ramps up, McCarthy is separately wrangling conservatives in his conference demanding further spending cuts to support a stopgap funding bill ahead of a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.
McCarthy argued that avoiding a government shutdown is critical to ensuring GOP investigations of Biden move forward.
“If we shut down, all the government shuts it down, investigation and everything else,” McCarthy said.
But if McCarthy hopes to win over the GOP members giving him grief about spending by pushing an impeachment inquiry, he could have his work cut out for him.
The Hill contributed to this report.