Kaitlan Collins Gives Marathon Grilling To House Republican On Biden Impeachment Inquiry: ‘Have You Seen Direct Evidence?’

CNN host Kaitlan Collins grilled Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) on Wednesday over the House Republican impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, which led to a tense back-and-forth.

The interview became rocky soon out of the gate as Collins hit Waltz with question after question about the purpose of the proposed impeachment inquiry.

After Waltz said Republicans wanted to launch the inquiry so they could see “the actual bank records,” Collins said, “But you have subpoena power last week. You had it three months ago. That’s what I’m confused about here.”

Waltz replied:

To answer your question, all of those things are going to end up in the courts. We know that’s where it is going to go, and at the end of the day, this inquiry gives us greater standing in court rather than say just the Ways and Means Committee asking for it. This is part of a formal impeachment inquiry, it historically holds greater standings. We think our judicial system, and we hope, will give it greater weight and that will get transparency for the American people.

Collins shot back, “You already have subpoena power now. This is something other Republican colleagues of yours and I have talked about. This is something you could have done, these subpoenas you could have issued months ago. You’ve already actually subpoenaed other bank records.”

After Waltz said, “Yeah, we’re issuing subpoenas, but they’re getting blocked and tackled and objected to at every turn,” Collins replied, “You’ve gotten a ton of access to bank records.”

Waltz then argued:

We have whistleblowers that are self-described Democrats, long-standing civil servants saying they were not allowed to even look into the tax records when you have evidence of taxes not being paid on millions of dollars. That’s an internal investigation, much less a congressional one. So we have no confidence that we’re going to have a cooperative DOJ. We have no evidence that we’re going to have a cooperative White House.

Collins interrupted, “They have been cooperating in the sense that you’ve seen the suspicious activity reports. We have interviewed House Oversight members who went to the Treasury Department and saw that. There’s been conversations between Chairman Comer and the Justice Department.”

After Collins questioned, “Have you seen direct evidence that President Biden profited?” Waltz said, “But Kaitlan, the point of the inquiry is to give us greater standing to get the full evidence.”

He continued, “We haven’t been allowed access to records and what this inquiry will do, hopefully, is give us greater standing in the courts to get those records. I mean, you’re acting as though the Department of Justice, the IRS, and others have given us everything we asked for. They haven’t. Nor did they give internal investigators what they asked for. That’s why they became whistleblowers!”

Collins concluded the interview by disputing Waltz’s claims and declaring, “We have not seen direct evidence. We’ll see what this inquiry leads to.”

Biden reacted to the proposed impeachment inquiry on Wednesday, commenting, “I get up every day, not a joke, not focused on impeachment. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got to deal with the issues that affect the American people every single solitary day.”

Watch above via CNN.