Senate Republicans Slam House GOP’s Impeachment Inquiry into Biden: ‘It Can’t Become Routine’

“My big fear remains that at some point you trivialize this, you make it routine," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said of the impeachment

While Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced Tuesday that his party is launching an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, not everyone in his party is convinced it's a good idea.

If impeached, Biden would almost certainly be acquitted by the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, though some lawmakers question whether an impeachment would even succeed in the Republican-led House.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told The Hill that impeachment “should generally be avoided for the interest of the country," adding: “It can’t become routine."

“My big fear remains that at some point you trivialize this, you make it routine. Suddenly it becomes a weapon or a tool routinely used by a political party against someone from the other party in power,” Rubio added.

Related: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Announces Impeachment Inquiry into President Joe Biden

McCarthy directed his party to open an impeachment inquiry in a Tuesday afternoon press conference, in which he accused Biden of lying to Americans "about his own knowledge of his family's foreign business dealings."

"Today, I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden," McCarthy said. Calling it a "logical next step," the speaker accused Biden of "abuse of power, corruption and obstruction," and claimed the president had "used his official office to coordinate with" his son Hunter Biden's various business dealings.

Hunter is already under federal investigation for alleged tax crimes related to his foreign business interests, though his father has not been implicated by authorities.

"We will go wherever the evidence takes us," McCarthy said in ending his speech.

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a leader in the Senate Republican Conference, told The Hill that she does not believe there's enough evidence to impeach Biden.

Another Senate Republican leader, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, believes that the mission to impeach Biden is a waste of House Republicans' resources, telling The Hill: “Rather than doing something they know is unlikely to end the way they would like, maybe they want to emphasize other things.”

Even in the House, some Republicans are not convinced that impeachment is warranted. On Sunday, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, told MSNBC's Jen Psaki, “The time for impeachment is the time when there’s evidence linking President Biden — if there’s evidence linking President Biden to a high crime or misdemeanor. That doesn’t exist right now."

And while some House Republicans say that a special impeachment inquiry would allow them to obtain evidence of criminal behavior by Biden and his family, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee was already unsuccessful in doing so, even after reviewing 12,000 pages of subpoenaed bank records as well as interviews with two of Hunter Biden’s business partners.

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Democrats have slammed Republicans for what some see as a retaliatory attempt to get back at the party for its two impeachments of Donald Trump, who was acquitted of those charges by the Senate but is now mired in various federal and state investigations related to his time in office.

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader in the House, wrote in a statement published to X, "The illegitimate impeachment inquiry launched by Extreme MAGA Republicans is regrettable, reckless and reprehensible. It is a political revenge tour that lacks any factual or constitutional basis. Democrats will defend the truth and fight right-wing extremists at every turn."

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