Anderson Cooper on Tuesday highlighted how House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) tone has radically changed on impeachment inquiries against sitting presidents.
The CNN anchor pointed to a 2019 tweet from McCarthy in which he declared an impeachment inquiry into then-President Donald Trump over Ukraine would require a full House vote.
McCarthy said a similar thing two weeks ago, Cooper noted with a caption of “saying one thing, doing another” on screen. McCarthy told right-wing Breitbart News that an inquiry against President Joe Biden “would occur through a vote” on the House floor, recalled Cooper.
On Tuesday, though, McCarthy said he was directing House committees to launch the inquiry against Biden — without a vote of the House, which would most likely have failed — in what appeared to be an appeasement of the far-right Republicans who backed his protracted bid to become speaker.
Republicans accuse Biden of corruption in Ukraine, but are yet to offer any compelling evidence ― leading critics to call the inquiry solely political.
Responding to McCarthy’s statement, the White House said House Republicans have “been investigating the President for 9 months, and they’ve turned up no evidence of wrongdoing. His own Republican members have said so.”
“He vowed to hold a vote to open impeachment, now he flip flopped because he doesn’t have support. This is extreme politics at its worst,” a spokesperson added.
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