House Republicans’ monthslong effort to impeach President Joe Biden is going to end without a vote because lawmakers “don’t have the guts” to take action, said a Republican member of the House Oversight Committee.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen, but I wish we would vote on it regardless,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said in an interview Friday with CNN when asked where the committee’s investigation, launched last year, now stands.
Burchett’s resolve follows an eight-hour impeachment inquiry hearing that wrapped up Wednesday without any hard evidence being presented of presidential wrongdoing by Biden. Republicans have accused the president of committing high crimes and misdemeanors by financially benefiting from the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.
Burchett said his fellow Republicans have told constituents at home that they will pursue an impeachment, but behind closed doors in Washington, they say they won’t vote in support.
“The reality is, they don’t have the guts to do it,” he told CNN’s Jim Acosta of his colleagues. Burchett made similar comments in separate interviews this week.
“We’re not gonna have the votes. That’s clearly the case,” he told NewsNation following Wednesday’s impeachment inquiry. “And I don’t think we ever did.”
Fellow Republicans have also expressed pessimism over a vote ever being cast.
“They’ve laid out a good case for impeaching Joe Biden,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) told Fox News last week, “but I just don’t think we have the will to do it.”
House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) on Wednesday called on Biden to testify as part of the inquiry, saying the president was either “complicit or incompetent” in his son’s business dealings. That testimony is not likely to happen.
He has also said that Republicans should focus on prosecuting Hunter Biden instead of his father.