Stefanik on impeaching Biden: 'Anything is on the table when we are in the majority'
No. 3 House Republican said focus of a GOP-led House should be oversight, making sure members pass legislation to secure border "once and for all."
Addressing the possibility of a GOP-controlled House impeaching President Biden in 2023, House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik told Just the News that "anything is on the table when we are in the majority."
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said recently there's a chance a Republican-led House would move to impeach Biden, specifically for his handling of the southern border crisis.
Stefanik shared her reaction to the comments Cruz made about impeachment.
"We've focused like a laser on the crises in America, and what I hear from voters — even in my district in northern New York, because I represent border patrol officers who have been transferred again and again and again to the southern border — it's crisis after crisis, it's a catastrophe,” the New York lawmaker said during a press call with journalists on Monday.
"Anything is on the table when we are in the majority," Stefanik allowed. "But what I believe we should focus on is conducting oversight and making sure that we're passing legislation to secure the border once and for all. The policies of the previous administration under President Trump were working."
Illegal border crossings increased 5% in November over the previous month. Since November 2020, illegal border crossings were up 140%. The federal government has not released December 2021 border statistics yet.
Progressive Democrats such as Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that they supported impeaching former President Trump while on the campaign trail in 2018.
Then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi did not publicly support impeachment during the 2018 campaign, which led to Democratic control fo the House. In 2019, Pelosi opened an impeachment inquiry against Trump after his phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Stefanik said she's currently focused on congressional oversight of the Biden Administration.
"My focus is on conducting oversight and making sure that we're passing legislation that we've introduced," she said. "We have numerous bills introduced to secure the border, and making sure that the border is fully funded."
Some of those oversight actions include the House Jan. 6 Select Committee. House Administration Committee Ranking Member Rodney Davis wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday, arguing that her office is blocking access to records related to security preparation of the U.S. Capitol ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot.
"There is irony in the fact that at the same time House Democrats are holding witnesses in criminal contempt of Congress for raising genuine questions of legal privilege, you continue to obstruct Republican access to House records relating to the security preparedness of the Capitol complex on January 6th, 2021," Davis wrote. "This double standard only adds to the evidence that Democrats are weaponizing events of January 6th against their political adversaries."