#Scaramucci: House GOP ‘damaged our party’ with ‘specious’ Biden impeachment inquiry

Former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci attacked House Republicans for their attempts to impeach President Biden for allegations of family business corruption, saying the investigation is baseless and hurts the party with prospective voters.

“I think it’s a specious inquiry. I disagree with it,” Scaramucci said in a NewsNation interview Friday. “I’m a lifelong Republican, and unfortunately, we’ve really damaged our party. I don’t think this helps our party.”

Republicans voted to open an official impeachment inquiry into Biden on Wednesday after months of preliminary investigation from the House Oversight Committee, alleging the president was involved in corrupt business deals.

The probe has produced no direct evidence that implicates the president in a crime, though it has spurred inquiry into wrongdoing by his son, Hunter Biden.

Scaramucci noted that the Republican Party, already hampered by the House Speaker fight, which dragged on for weeks and hurt the party in the eyes of prospective voters, faces a numbers disadvantage compared to Democrats and independents.

“We’ve got less than 28 percent of the registered voters. The Democrats are bigger and the independents are way bigger than that,” he said. “Instead of focusing on this, why not go after all these people that are no longer in our party.”

Some Republican lawmakers have also shown suspicion over the inquiry. Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), who voted to approve the inquiry, said Wednesday that he has not seen any evidence of Biden committing a ‘high crime or misdemeanor,’ the constitutional bar for impeachment.

“The process has been abused,” Joyce said in a separate NewsNation interview. “It’s meant to take out mentally deficient folks, somebody who’s lost their mind while they’re in office, or somebody who’s a [former Rep. George] Santos, like where they’ve committed in crimes while they’re in office.”

He called on the investigation set up by the inquiry vote to quickly establish whether impeachment should be pursued.

“I have three different committees that are all focused on this — OK, put up or shut up. You either have the evidence or you don’t,” Joyce said.

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) also warned that Biden could not be impeached or removed from office for conduct or crimes committed before he was elected to the White House.

“What he did as vice president, what he did in between the two [offices] may not be impeachable,” he said during an interview on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.”  

“If they send us a case, make sure it’s convictable,” Mullin advised. “The bar’s real high, there’s no question about it.”  

NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.