WASHINGTON – 2024 Republican presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned House Republicans about their ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, saying that GOP lawmakers risk getting distracted from addressing other issues facing Americans.
DeSantis said on Sunday he thinks the probe is “justifiable” in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” but he noted House Republicans “run the risk of doing an inquiry that doesn’t necessarily lead anywhere while they’ve been ignoring a lot of the problems that our voters are talking about.”
“When I’m going through Iowa, Republican voters obviously are not fond of Joe Biden. Yes they’re concerned about Hunter (Biden) and all this money, but they’re more concerned about what’s happening at our border. They’re more concerned about what’s happening with the economy,” DeSantis, also a former House lawmaker, added.
House Republicans opened the impeachment inquiry into the president in September over allegations Biden financially benefited from his family’s overseas business dealings. However, the inquiry has yet to produce evidence directly implicating Biden in those foreign affairs.
House Republican leadership and the committee chairs leading the investigation met behind closed doors to brief members last week to discuss the ongoing inquiry. GOP members leaving the meeting said they expect to see a vote to formally authorize the probe in the coming weeks in a bid to strengthen the inquiry’s legitimacy and legal standing. The proceedings against Biden are only an impeachment inquiry, not a full-scale impeachment effort.
While the Florida governor cautioned against getting tunnel vision on the impeachment inquiry, DeSantis still criticized the president’s family over their business dealings.
But he added: “Make sure you’re not ignoring all these other issues. And don’t use that inquiry as kind of a Trojan horse to not then meet your responsibilities on all these other things,” DeSantis added.
