Andrew Harnik/AP
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said during a conference call on Thursday that President Joe Biden’s actions warrant an impeachment, after initially voicing skepticism of the inquiry and calling it a distraction.
“Pres. Biden has committed the sort of acts that warrant an impeachment inquiry,” Cornyn said during a conference call, according to his office.
Coryn added that “Speaker McCarthy, I think, is doing the right thing.”
“I hope they do their homework and do their due diligence, and they prepare the case and follow the facts wherever they may lead,” the Texas senator said.
Coryn recently claimed that an impeachment would be a “distraction” and that the House instead should be investigating Biden but without a formal impeachment inquiry.
“It really comes to how do you prioritize your time? I don’t know of anybody who believes [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer will take it up and actually have a trial and convict a sitting president,” Cornyn said, according to a recent report.
“Since they got the majority, they got the chairmen of the various committees, they could do all of that now without going to a formal inquiry. Members of the House don’t really care what I think. All I can tell you, it’s unlikely to be successful in the Senate,” he previously explained.
“Rather than doing something they know is unlikely to end the way they would like, maybe they want to emphasize other things,” he said.
Coryn is now only the second top Senate Republican to support such an inquiry. PunchBowl News recently reported that Wyoming Senator John Barasso was the only GOP member in leadership that supports an impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden. Barasso told the publication that it was important for the House to “untangle this web of corruption that we’ve seen coming out of this administration and specifically the Biden family.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), previously said impeaching Biden would “not be good for the country,” but declined to weigh in much on the matter last Tuesday when the impeachment inquiry was announced, only saying that McCarthy did not need his advice.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) distanced himself from the impeachment inquiry, saying that the Senate needed to focus on “keeping the trains running.” Thune indicated that he does not believe that conducting an impeachment trial during the middle of the Senate trying to pass government funding for the upcoming fiscal year would be a fruitful endeavor.
When asked if there’s enough evidence to impeach Biden, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.VA), another member of the Senate GOP leadership team, replied: “I do not.”
