'It’ll work wonders!' White House mocks Republicans for floating Biden impeachment inquiry

WASHINGTON − The White House mocked House Republicans on Wednesday for threatening impeachment inquiries targeting President Joe Biden and members of his Cabinet, characterizing such talk as a desperate response to an improving economy under Biden's watch.

The rebuttal signals an aggressive, head-on approach from the White House to get in front of potential impeachment proceedings that would collide with the 2024 presidential campaign season.

"Now House Republicans are channeling their frustrated energy into a measured and purposeful urge to impeach… someone… somewhere… for something," White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in an memo, in which he provided the ellipses for emphasis.

"We’re sure they’ll figure that one out. And this time, it’ll work wonders! Just like their pursuit of manufactured conspiracy theories about the President for the past four years has."

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, under pressure from the right flank of his party to pursue impeachment of Biden and other administration officials, said Monday that investigations by House Republicans into the business dealings Biden's family are "rising to the level of impeachment inquiry."

The next day, McCarthy seemed to walk back the certainty of an inquiry, telling reporters he "wasn't announcing it."

"I simply said that the actions that I’m seeing by this administration − withholding the agencies from being able to work with us, that would rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry," McCarthy said.

McCarthy's comments were the strongest indication to date that Republicans could launch impeachment proceedings against Biden over unsubstantiated allegations that he was involved in his son Hunter's business dealings with Ukrainian and Chinese companies when he was vice president.

The House speaker said an impeachment inquiry would give Congress "the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed" to take further action against the president.

In a statement on the White House memo that fired back at House Republicans, Chad Gilmartin, deputy spokesman for McCarthy, told USA TODAY, “Every day our committees uncover new evidence concerning Biden Inc. They will continue to follow the facts – even as the White House changes their story while refusing to answer important questions.”

House Republicans have not clearly identified a criminal wrongdoing from Biden that would be the basis of an impeachment inquiry but have recently pointed to evidence cited by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the Oversight Committee, that Hunter Biden put his then-vice president father on the phone with foreign business associates.

GOP members of Congress have also launched investigations into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who faced a barrage of questioning from Republicans Wednesday over his handling of migration at the southern border during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. House Republicans have talked about targeting Attorney General Merrick Garland with impeachment as well.

At the House hearing, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y, derided the GOP for making "bogus claims" against Mayorkas. "Some of it dangerous. Some of it petty. None of it true.”

"To be clear, Republicans have not established any legitimate grounds to impeach Secretary Mayorkas. They have not uncovered evidence of wrongdoing or malfeasance of any kind," Nadler said. "They have policy disagreements with the secretary. And so do we. But policy disagreements and personal grudges are not a basis for impeachment."

"I think the Republican desire to impeach someone, anyone, no matter whether there's any evidence, just shows how they have descended into chaos," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told Fox News on Tuesday of the GOP threat to impeach Biden.

Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis endorsed an impeachment inquiry into Biden, saying House Republicans would be within their rights to pursue.

"They impeached Trump for a phone call," DeSantis said in an interview on Fox News. "Are you trying to tell me Biden's conduct isn't as significant at that? It's way more significant. So they are absolutely within their rights to do that."

In the White House memo, Bates accused Republicans − who for months blasted Biden over inflation that was previously rising − of failing to find a coherent message to combat "Bidenomics," the White House's newly branded name for the president's economic agenda.

The White House has celebrated a string of good news on the economic front that it credits the president with: inflation that has now declined 12 straight months, downgraded recession predictions, historically low unemployment and rising consumer confidence.

Bates characterized Republicans' impeachment talk as their latest addition to a "haphazard non-message."

"Instead of having a consistent, disciplined message, the congressional GOP’s public criticisms of the Biden-Harris Administration are now a fragmented grab-bag that runs the gamut ...," Bates said. "The bottom line is this. The subtitle to everything that makes up congressional Republicans’ disjointed message is this: 'Bidenomics is working.'"

Before former President Donald Trump’s two impeachments, only two presidents had ever been impeached by the House: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998.

While a potential Biden impeachment inquiry has moved into the mainstream of the Republican Party, some lawmakers in the GOP are opposed to spending what little time that Congress before the end of the fiscal year to work on appropriations bills investigating the president. The House will recess at the end of this week until mid-September.

Appearing on CNN, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., called McCarthy's moves "impeachment theater."

"What he is doing is he is saying there is a shiny object over here, and we're really going to focus on that. We just need to get all these things done so that we can focus on this shiny object," Buck said. "Most of us are concerned about spending. It is an existential threat to this country. And so, we want to move forward with the spending bills in a responsible way."

Contributing: White House Correspondent Maureen Groppe.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: White House mocks GOP for potential Biden impeachment inquiry