Grassley stops short of fully endorsing Biden impeachment inquiry

Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said Wednesday he’s sympathetic to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy floating an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over House Republicans’ investigations into the business dealings of his family members.

Grassley said an inquiry may give the House more power to find information it otherwise have not had access to in wide-ranging investigations that have not turned up any evidence of wrongdoing by the Democratic president.

“I think that the key word is inquiry,” Grassley told reporters. “I think that there's a feeling that Congress is not getting enough information from the FBI and the Department of Justice. We have a constitutional responsibility of oversight. And the inquiry stage is just to put more resources behind all these questions that haven't been properly answered yet.”

McCarthy, a Republican from California, said Monday on Fox News that Republican investigations into the finances of Biden and his family members are “rising to the level of impeachment inquiry.”

Grassley stopped short of fully supporting a House impeachment inquiry, and he said he does not know if the evidence available to House Republicans warrants it.

“I’m kind of cautious what I say about anybody’s impeachment,” he said. “But for sure you can say, this is just my reputation, I support fact-finding. So I guess I would applaud McCarthy or (Rep. James) Comer or (Rep. Jason) Smith on Ways and Means and (Rep. Jim) Jordan on Judiciary.”

One item at play in the Republican investigations is an unverified FBI document that contains allegations of a bribery payment made to Biden that Grassley made public last week. The largely discredited allegations were determined to be lacking evidence by Trump’s Department of Justice in 2020. FBI officials said last week the release of the document risked the safety of a confidential source.