The Democratic National Committee named former President Donald Trump the "real Speaker of the House" on Tuesday after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) suggested that an investigation into President Joe Biden's family could lead to an impeachment inquiry.
"He has made sure the House majority is little more than an arm of his 2024 campaign, and Kevin McCarthy is happy to do his bidding — promising to expunge Trump’s own bipartisan impeachments, and now threatening President Biden with a baseless impeachment to distract from their lack of any meaningful agenda and Trump’s own significant challenges," DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement reacting to McCarthy.
Discussing allegations against Biden and his family regarding their foreign business dealings, McCarthy told Fox News's Sean Hannity: "I believe we will follow this all the way to the end, and this is going to rise to an impeachment inquiry, the way the Constitution tells us to do this, and we have to get the answers to these questions."
The speaker said: "This president has also used something we have not seen since Richard Nixon, used the weaponization of government to benefit his family and deny Congress the ability to have oversight."
Harrison dismissed the Monday evening threat as "another political stunt intended to help Trump, which House Republicans have already admitted."
"Instead of wasting the American people’s time and money carrying water for Trump, Republicans should join President Biden in working to provide relief for hardworking families, lowering costs, and bringing jobs back to America instead of playing reruns of the Trump show," he said.
At the center of the allegations against Biden is an unclassified FBI FD-1023 form in which informants detail claims of the now-president wielding his influence to coerce payments from foreign entities.
Last week, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released a lightly redacted version of the form to the public.
Congressional Democrats have pushed back against Republicans over the form, which the bureau uses to collect “raw, unverified” information from confidential sources, calling the claims levied “conspiracy theories.”
After the form was released, White House counsel spokesman Ian Sams said: “It is remarkable that congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to go after President Biden regardless of the truth, continue to push claims that have been debunked for years.”