Speaker Johnson: No ‘commitment’ on Biden impeachment as Greene threatens to force vote
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday refused to commit to staging a vote on impeaching President Biden over the situation at the southern border, after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) threatened to force a vote on the matter.
“I’m not making any commitment on that this morning,” Johnson said when asked about Greene’s comments the day before. “We have to let the constitutional process and our constitutional responsibility play out.”
Johnson said it is possible Biden committed impeachable offenses while president, but he emphasized the importance of Congress’s impeachment authority and stressed the process must be respected.
“The impeachment power is one that we wield very carefully here. As I’ve said so many times, next to the declaration of war, it’s the heaviest power that Congress has. It needs to be very methodical,” Johnson said.
“I think President Biden’s the worst president in the history of the country. And there may well be impeachable offenses,” he added. “There’s an investigation process that’s gone about, that has been looked at, of our committees of jurisdiction, and the process continues.”
The comments came less than 24 hours after Greene told reporters she was considering forcing a vote on her articles of impeachment against Biden for his handling of the situation at the southern border. The impeachment resolution accuses Biden of violating his oath of office and failing to follow immigration laws.
The Georgia Republican said she was going to trigger her resolution Monday night but decided to hold off until she spoke with Johnson. She made the threat the night before Biden was expected to roll out an executive order cracking down on the situation at the southern border.
“I’m mad,” she told reporters. “I didn’t come up here to hang out with everybody and go ‘oh, hey, guys.’ I mean, my people at home are mad. Everybody across this country are furious. We don’t want a banana republic — we want an actual legitimate government. We want a real justice system. We don’t have one right now.”
Johnson and Greene spoke in the Capitol on Tuesday. The Speaker said the conversation was “productive,” a characterization the Georgia Republican rejected.
“It’s only productive to me when there’s action taken,” Greene said.
Asked when the congresswoman would force a vote on her impeachment resolution — on Monday, she said she would do so if Johnson refused to put it on the floor — she said she first wants to review Biden’s executive order.
“I’m gonna continue talks on impeachment,” Greene said. “We need to see this executive order that’s coming out.”
But pressed on what she asked Johnson for during their meeting, Greene largely focused on former President Trump’s conviction in the New York hush money case, demanding that the Speaker take action to respond to the guilty charges.
“I am urging in the loudest, most possible way, that Republicans across the country and many Americans in general are sick and tired and fed up with a feckless, useless, Republican Party and conference that does nothing,” she said. “They’re completely tired of the committee hearings, the interviews on television, these interviews here, they are so over it.”
“Honestly, how people feel is our country literally changed when 34 felony counts were turned into convictions against President Trump,” she added.
The congresswoman said she brought Johnson a “list of ideas,” but did not specify what it includes.
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