Speaker Mike Johnson Faces Looming Battles Over Biden Impeachment, Shutdown

In 12 days, Mike Johnson (R-LA) will need to whip out a compromise between House conservatives and Senate Democrats along with RINO republicans in order to keep the government from default, yet again.

Johnson is also going to need to appease the renewed vigor for a Biden impeachment among House Republicans – which we wouldn’t be surprised to see linked to shutdown negotiations.

According to Punchbowl News, Johnson has been keeping his cards close to his vest and hasn’t shared much of his thinking with his leadership team.

The GOP whip operation is not currently in action at all. Remember, when GOP speakers move government funding bills, the majority leader and whip operation typically hold listening sessions and begin to work the vote days — if not weeks — in advance. That hasn’t happened yet.

The House Republican Conference is slated to meet on Tuesday behind closed doors and sources in the speaker, majority leader and majority whip’s office told us that they don’t expect much of an answer on the path forward until after that gathering.

Here are Johnson’s options, per Punchbowl:

1) A ‘clean’ bill would allow federal funding agencies to operate until the middle of January, Johnson’s preference in terms of duration of this latest band-aid. This would be the ‘path of least resistance’ for Johnson.

2) Pairing an extension with H.R. 2, the GOP immigration bill which would strengthen the US-Mexico border. That said, H.R. 2 is broad, and has provisions that most senators will reject. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, say they’re working on a separate border plan which they insist won’t amount to a conservative wish list, and which they’ll seek to attach to the national-security supplemental funding bill. House Republicans could also cherry pick aspects of H.R. 2.

That said, if Johnson and crew attempt to slash federal spending in relation to a two-month stopgap, they’re gonna have a bad time.

3) A ‘laddered approach’ – pushed by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), which would extend government funding for each agency for different periods of time. This has exactly zero support in the Senate.

Impeachment?

While Democrats impeached Trump for simply asking Ukraine about obvious (and increasingly evidenced) Biden corruption, and then impeached him again over Jan. 6 (using a MSM producer to choreograph the ‘show’), Republicans are spinning their wheels over Biden, because they suck at this.

Johnson has cautioned over rushing an investigation, calling impeachment the “heaviest power that we have.”

That said, as a prominent member of the House Judiciary Committee, Johnson insisted that bribery is “what happened here.”

The White House has vigorously denied any wrongdoing by Biden and noted that even as Republicans have pored over the business dealings of his brother and son, they’ve failed to connect the president to their work overseas.

But as Johnson takes the helm from a former Speaker who at times seemed reluctant to pursue the matter, he said last week the House would soon have to determine how to move forward with an investigation shared across three committees. –The Hill

“I do believe that very soon we are coming to a point of decision on it,” Johnson said on Thursday.

“I have been very consistent, intellectually consistent in this, and persistent that we have to follow due process, and we have to follow the law,” he continued. “That means following our obligation on the Constitution and doing appropriate investigations in the right way at the right pace, so that the evidence comes in, and we follow the evidence where it leads. You follow the truth where it leads.“

Chairmen Comer, Jordan, and Smith have my full faith and backing as they continue their investigations into the Biden family.

We will follow the truth where it leads and deliver for the American people. pic.twitter.com/NRTrjV0VC3

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) October 29, 2023

“We’ve not predetermined the outcome of this. We’ve not prejudged it,” Johnson said. “But I think everyone can see how it is unfolding.”

The underlying allegation stems from when Biden was Vice President and threatened Ukraine’s former president with a quid-pro-quo to withhold US foreign aid unless they fired the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden’s employer.

“The president bribed or pressured a foreign leader to fire that country’s top prosecutor because the prosecutor was investigating his son, and he used $1 billion of U.S. taxpayer money to have that bidding done, and then he bragged about it on video,” Johnson said on Fox News in August.

According to Rep. James Comer, it’s up to Johnson.

Comer tells Maria Bartiromo he thinks Biden should be impeached but is leaving it up to Mike Johnson pic.twitter.com/g2MI0PNiwh

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2023