Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday urged rank-and-file Republicans to oppose a resolution offered by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., that would force a quick vote to impeach President Joe Biden, arguing that such an important issue should go through the committee process, three GOP sources who heard the comments confirmed to NBC News.
McCarthy, R-Calif., made his remarks during a closed-door meeting of House Republicans as lawmakers debated whether they should press forward now with an impeachment vote while multiple GOP-led committees are still in the middle of investigating the president and his family members.
McCarthy “thinks we should go through committee. When we treat it frivolously, it strengthens Biden and weakens us,” said a GOP lawmaker who was in the room.
When Democrats controlled the chamber, McCarthy had vehemently argued that the other party was rushing to impeach then-President Donald Trump, not once, but twice. Now, the speaker is warning that Republicans could fall into the same trap by immediately voting to impeach Biden.
“The speaker’s message was that we need to follow regular order and let the committees do their work,” a second source said.
Boebert did not attend the weekly House GOP Conference meeting, lawmakers said, so she did not hear McCarthy’s comments directly. A conservative bomb thrower and fierce McCarthy critic, Boebert shocked colleagues by introducing impeachment articles Tuesday night as a “privileged” resolution, which means it must be voted on within two legislative days.
“Republicans need to stick together and get this man out office for his dereliction of duty on the Southern Border,” she tweeted Wednesday.
But some Republicans predicted that the Boebert resolution did not have enough GOP votes to pass. Moderate Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said impeachment should go through the committee process and confirmed he would back a Democratic effort to “table,” or set aside, Boebert’s resolution.
“I think if people see that we’re being honest about this and that impeachment is a very serious thing, it should go through committee,” Bacon told reporters. “I feel like it was cheapened in the last Congress, we shouldn’t follow the same footprints.”
“I think in the end, it’s gonna be tabled,” he continued. “And I believe in team sports and working together, and this is an individual that I believe is undermining the team.”
A McCarthy spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Boebert’s resolution is part of a larger push by the House GOP majority to retaliate against their political enemies. On Wednesday, the GOP-led House will vote on a resolution by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., to censure former Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the lead prosecutor during Trump’s first impeachment. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is also vowing to introduce other privileged resolutions to impeach Biden and other top administration officials.
Leaving Wednesday’s meeting, Greene, a McCarthy ally who has been feuding for months with Boebert, accused the Colorado Republican of copying her own articles of impeachment against Biden.
“I had already introduced articles of impeachment on Joe Biden for the border, asked her to co-sponsor mine — she didn’t,” Greene complained. “She basically copied my articles and then introduced them and then changed them to a privileged resolution.
“So of course I support them because they’re identical to mine. They’re basically copied,” she said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
