U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaks to the media near the doorway of the Fulton County Jail, as former U.S. President Donald Trump is anticipated to show himself in to be processed after his Georgia indictment, in Atlanta, Georgia, August 24, 2023.
Dustin Chambers | Reuters
WASHINGTON — The White House pushed back on Republican talk of impeachment as “a partisan stunt” after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, vowed to not vote for funding the federal government without proceedings.
“I’ve already decided I is not going to vote to fund the federal government unless we’ve passed an impeachment inquiry,” Greene said.
Thursday night at a town hall to her constituents and later in a post on X, formerly often known as Twitter, Greene said she wouldn’t vote on vital budget bills unless impeachment proceedings begin for President Joe Biden.
Failing to fund the federal government would result in a shutdown when the fiscal 12 months ends on Sept. 30, which could end in furloughed staff, closed agencies and place many essential programs in peril.
The House has only passed certainly one of 12 budget bills needed to fund the federal government with the deadline to achieve this lower than a month away.
The White House on Thursday asked Congress to pass a short-term continuing resolution to fund the federal government while long-term budget negotiations proceed. Even before Greene’s comments, deep divisions remain between the parties with Republicans seeking to implement large spending cuts unlikely to pass within the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Greene also said she wouldn’t vote on budget measures if the House didn’t “defund Biden’s weaponization of presidency,” end coronavirus mandates and stop funding to Ukraine.
White House spokesperson Ian Sams forcefully pushed back on Greene in a press release, saying thousands and thousands of dollars had already been wasted on the “wild goose chase” that’s the investigation into Biden and his family.
“Certainly one of the House’s strongest members, Marjorie Taylor Greene, just admitted that the House Republican impeachment is barely a partisan stunt driven by probably the most extreme, far-right members,” Sams said.
Republicans have yet to point out any evidence of wrongdoing by Biden when he was vp and his son Hunter was on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, or that Biden benefitted in any respect from his son’s role.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has begun to warn his members that failing to fund the federal government could have adversarial effects on their impeachment probe, which in a Fox News interview last Sunday he called “a natural next step.”
“If we shut down, all of presidency shuts down — investigations and all the things else,” McCarthy told Fox News Sunday.
In an interview with Breitbart News Friday, McCarthy said if the House opens an impeachment inquiry into Biden, there might be a proper vote to achieve this.
“If we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it will occur through a vote on the ground of the People’s House and never through a declaration by one person,” McCarthy said.
