White House spokesperson blasts McCarthy for promising to hold an impeachment vote — then backing out
Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for Oversight and Investigations, said that Speaker Kevin McCarthy promised he would hold an impeachment vote on President Joe Biden before moving forward.
Once the moment came, however, no vote happened.
"You know, I think it's really critical in a moment like this for the truth to get out," he told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday afternoon. He noted that it's important for Wallace and others on television to show Republicans themselves don't buy the impeachment into Biden.
"You can see that with what Speaker McCarthy did," he continued. "Just 10 days ago he promised he would hold a vote – a full vote of the House before he opened any impeachment inquiry. But what happened? A bunch of Republicans came out and said, 'I can't support that. We're not ready to move to that because there is no evidence.' And so, he declares it by fiat that there's going to be an impeachment inquiry."
He went on to say that the onus is on the independent press to continue fact-checking claims being pressed by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and others.
"Over and over again, their own witnesses, their own documents — saying the president didn't do anything wrong," Sams said. "These are the things that the press needs to cover. It can't just be about, 'Oh, Speaker McCarthy is threatening an impeachment. Or MTG said this today. It needs to be a full investigation of their claims and to hold them accountable for the truth.
"Because the truth is that the president did nothing wrong. That Republicans in the House are wasting millions and millions of taxpayers' dollars. Not to mention time. Not to mention feeding this disinformation push by Fox and other right-wing outlets, just to attack the president politically."
He pointed out that Republicans have admitted Tuesday, and over the past few weeks, that they don't have the necessary information to prove that the president committed "high crimes and misdemeanors," which is among the standards for impeachment.
Sams quoted Gaetz confessing that the impeachment wasn't about the process or an effort to find the truth, "It's about next year."
Rep. James Comer (R-KY) the chair of the House Oversight Committee who has been holding many of the hearings for the past several months, bragged that their investigations "are hurting President Biden's poll numbers."
"They are admitting the purpose of what they are doing," Sams continued. "And the purpose of what they're doing is a politically motivated, far-right extreme series of attacks on the president and his family that are not rooted in the truth."
He demanded accountability for "the lies" those Republicans are telling the American people.
See the interview in the video below or at the link here.
White House spox blasts McCarthy for promising to hold an impeachment vote — then backing out www.youtube.com