EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., is urging House GOP leaders to hold a chamber-wide vote on impeaching President Biden days after a highly anticipated report accused the commander in chief of committing impeachable offenses.
“I’ve felt that way for a long time. I’m on the Oversight Committee, I’ve seen all of the evidence up close and personal. It is without a doubt that he used his office when he was vice president to enrich his family as pay for play,” Donalds told Fox News Digital. “That’s public corruption.”
Referencing the phone call with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy that precipitated the first impeachment of former President Trump, Donalds added, “Listen, if a phone call is quote-unquote, an impeachable offense, then public corruption absolutely is. I think the House should hold that vote.”
House Republicans released a 292-page report on Monday, a joint effort by the House Oversight Committee, House Judiciary Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, arguing Biden engaged in “impeachable conduct.”
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Rep. Byron Donalds is urging the House to hold a vote on impeaching President Biden. (Getty Images)
Those committees have been working on a monthslong investigation into whether Biden helped enrich himself and his family through foreign business deals while he was vice president.
Donalds’ public pressure is significant; while a majority of House Republicans have publicly accused Biden of at least acting improperly, it’s not clear that House leaders would risk forcing their most vulnerable GOP members to take such a weighty vote with just a razor-thin majority in the chamber.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., indicated in March that criminal referrals could be the end of the road for the probe. He told Newsmax the House “would vote to impeach Joe Biden right now,” but “the best path to accountability is criminal referrals.”
In his statement on the impeachment report on Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., praised the investigation as “thorough, diligent and thoughtful” but made no mention of a House-wide vote. Johnson himself has previously said he believes Biden is guilty of wrongdoing.
Donalds appeared to reference his colleagues’ hesitation when he told Fox News Digital he would make the case for an impeachment vote to Johnson the next time he spoke with the GOP leader.
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President Biden hugs his son Hunter Biden during the Democratic National Convention Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
“It’ll definitely probably come up, and we’ll see where it is,” Donalds said. “And look, I know members, they all are trying to figure out what they’re going to do in their re-elections, but we have a responsibility to hold the executive branch accountable. That is the job of Congress.”
“I think one of the reasons why a lot of people are losing faith in our institutions is because it appears that people at the top of our politics just get away with everything and are never held accountable. And that’s wrong.”
In their report, Republicans said there is “overwhelming evidence” that Biden participated in a “conspiracy to monetize his office of public trust to enrich his family.” They alleged that the Biden family and their business associates received tens of millions of dollars from foreign interests by “leading those interests to believe that such payments would provide them access to and influence with President Biden.”
The committees said the Biden family and its associates received more than $27 million from foreign individuals or entities since 2014.
It’s not clear if House Speaker Mike Johnson will hold a vote. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
They also alleged that the Biden family leveraged Biden’s position as vice president to obtain more than $8 million in loans from Democratic benefactors. The loans “have not been repaid and the paperwork supporting many of the loans does not exist and has not been produced to the committees.”
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The White House said in response to the report, “This failed stunt will only be remembered for how it became an embarrassment that their own members distanced themselves from as they only managed to turn up evidence that refuted their false and baseless conspiracy theories. The American people deserve more from House Republicans, and perhaps now they will finally join President Biden in focusing on the real issues that American families actually care about.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on Donalds’ remarks.