House GOP hits end of Biden impeachment effort

House Republicans are all but officially giving up on trying to impeach Joe Biden.

GOP lawmakers on the Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means committees released a nearly 300-page report on Monday detailing the findings of their impeachment inquiry, accusing Biden of engaging in “impeachable conduct.” The Republicans said they’re still investigating, but even they didn’t directly call for an impeachment vote, leaving that up to the wider GOP Conference.

Shortly after the report’s release, Speaker Mike Johnson put out a statement encouraging all Americans to read the report and commending the committees for their work. Critically, it did not mention any next steps — a strong signal that leadership doesn’t plan to bring up an impeachment vote against Biden. And committee heads like Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and James Comer (R-Ky.) aren’t demanding one either.

It’s an anticlimactic end for what was one of the party’s most high-profile investigations of its slim majority. But it’s also a predictable one: With a three-vote margin, it’s been clear for months that House Republicans don’t have the votes to impeach Biden. Centrists have expressed open skepticism that investigators had found clear evidence of a crime or impeachable offense despite private briefings. And some of their colleagues are acknowledging that the report is effectively the end of the road.

“We don’t have the votes. We won’t have the votes. It’s math. … The report is going to be the end of it,” one GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said about the impeachment effort.

Of course, that doesn’t mean conservatives are summarily dropping it — a dynamic that will likely continue to be a potential headache for leadership. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) asked Johnson in a post on X on Monday: “When are we voting to impeach Biden?”

And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who previously floated forcing a vote on impeaching Biden over the border, said in a Monday statement that he “must be impeached.” She added that she was “extremely frustrated with this Congress,” which she believed should have already brought articles against the president.

Still, neither Greene nor Steube said explicitly that they would force an impeachment vote when Republicans return to Washington in early September, which they could do without buy-in from leadership. Such a vote would be all but guaranteed to fail; GOP lawmakers estimate that dozens of their colleagues remain skeptical of the effort. But some conservatives have floated holding one anyway, wanting to force their colleagues to go on the record — a move that could squeeze some centrist Republicans just weeks before the election.

If Republicans don’t head to the House floor with impeachment, it will mark the first formal presidential impeachment inquiry in modern times that hasn’t ended in a vote, except for Richard Nixon, who resigned before the vote could happen. But it’s a reality that a growing swath of the conference has appeared poised to accept as investigators look for other potential off-ramps .

That includes making criminal referrals to the Justice Department for James and Hunter Biden — the president’s brother and son, respectively — as well as bipartisan legislation to tighten financial disclosure laws for presidents, vice presidents and their family members.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) summed up the state of the impeachment effort in a recent interview, telling POLITICO: “I’d say we’re finished with that.” Comer has also sought to distance the investigation from impeachment, saying in a recent interview that he “never asked” for leaders to officially open an impeachment inquiry. Rather, he added, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy “thought it would help us in court.”

House Republicans have spent months on their investigation, which has largely focused on the business deals of Biden’s family members. A hefty chunk of their report on Monday delves deeply into the financial affairs of Hunter and James Biden, including their business ventures and loans the two received. While the report notes the inquiry remains open, both Comer and Jordan have said their investigations are largely over, though a handful of legal battles remain.

Republicans say they traced $27 million to the Biden family and their associates from foreign entities, and allege that they would not have received the funding had Joe Biden not been in office. They also uncovered examples of Hunter and James Biden leaning on their last name, and their connections to Joe Biden, to bolster their own influence.

But investigators struggled to find clear evidence that shows a direct link between actions Biden took as president or vice president and those business deals or that Biden committed a crime.

Some former business associates told investigators that Hunter Biden would put his father on speakerphone during meetings with potential business partners, though they said the conversation was limited to pleasantries. In other instances, witnesses recalled Joe Biden stopping by dinners or lunches — but that business wasn’t discussed at those moments. Hunter and James Biden have both denied that Joe Biden has been involved in their business deals — a denial repeatedly echoed by the White House.

In their report, GOP investigators argued they didn’t need to show evidence of a crime or a quid pro quo — but that’s exactly what some of their colleagues said they needed to see in order to approve a Biden impeachment. And Democrats quickly claimed victory on Monday, arguing that the report effectively cleared Joe Biden’s name.

“The report they throw out into the world during an August congressional recess and at the start of the Democratic National Convention as a last-minute face-saving gesture is actually a Banana Republican cream pie they have just pressed into their own faces,” said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee.

He also circulated a memo to Democratic members with the subject line: “President Biden Exonerated by Impeachment Inquiry.”

GOP leaders have been trying to rebuff criticism of their investigative efforts, with the speaker’s office and certain committees putting together a list of investigative wins they believe have come out of the GOP’s majority. Those include pressuring then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign in the wake of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, Judiciary Committee probes into Vice President Kamala Harris’ work on the border and resignations at Columbia University, which has been under investigation by the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The lack of votes is the primary driver for the GOP’s stalled momentum on impeachment, but there’s another dynamic at play now, too: Republicans’ political calculus has changed.

With Biden dropping out of the presidential race, Republicans are increasingly shifting their focus toward Harris and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. Republicans are digging into Harris’ work on the border and recently opened an investigation into Walz’s work related to China.

The “Biden-Harris” administration gets name dropped roughly 20 times in the GOP’s impeachment report — even though Harris wasn’t at the center of a GOP investigation that largely focused on the business deals of Biden’s family members, as well as the federal investigation into Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s handling of classified records. And Republicans rolled out their report on the first day of the Democratic convention, with Biden expected to speak on Monday night.