WSJ Calls For McCarthy To ‘Ask The House to Vote’ On Impeachment Inquiry — Just Like Pelosi Eventually Did
The Wall Street Journal editorial board reacted to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) launching an impeachment inquiry on Tuesday by both warning about lowering the standard for impeachment and insisting that Hunter Biden and his alleged financial connections to his father, President Joe Biden, warranted investigation.
The Journal, however, also called on McCarthy to hold a floor vote on opening an inquiry, a position McCarthy himself held both in 2019 when Democrats moved to open an inquiry regarding then President Donald Trump and earlier in the month when discussing Biden.
“It isn’t clear whether Mr. McCarthy will ask the House to vote on a formal inquiry, but he should. That would put Members on record. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had tried to dodge such a vote, but she later relented under criticism from Republicans,” the board noted.
McCarthy took questions from the press on Wednesday and was asked about his flip-flop on holding a House vote to open the inquiry.
“Nancy Pelosi changed the precedent of this House on September 24th. It was withheld and good enough for every single Democrat here,” McCarthy replied. “It was good enough for the judge. Why does it have to be different today?”
Pelosi did indeed hold a vote in 2019 after initially resisting doing so on the inquiry into Trump’s first impeachment. The New York Times reported at the time, “Having resisted such a vote for months, Democrats muscled through their resolution over unanimous Republican opposition with only two of their members breaking ranks to vote no. The tally foreshadowed the battle to come as Democrats take their case against the president fully into public view, sending both parties into uncharted territory and reshaping the nation’s political landscape.”
The October 2019 vote passed the House 232 to 196, a tally McCarthy could never hope for given his slim House majority and the fact that many House GOP members, moderates and conservatives, are on record saying they oppose moving forward on a Biden impeachment given what they see as a lack of evidence.
