If Republicans in November win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, they will hold hearings to consider the impeachment of President Joe Biden, U.S. Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado said Thursday during a tele-town hall.
Buck was responding to a question from a listener, who asked if the Republican congressman, who represents Colorado’s 4th District, would support impeachment.
“It’s a good question. It’s a fair question,” Buck responded. “I sit on the Judiciary Committee. We will hold the hearings to determine whether impeachment is appropriate. We’ll vote on impeachment. And then it will be presented to the full House.”
Buck joins a group of far-right members of Congress who have similarly entertained the notion of a Biden impeachment, partly in response to the president’s handling of immigration and the country’s southern border. The group includes Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican of Ohio, who in a Republican majority would be poised to chair the House Judiciary Committee, which typically has jurisdiction over impeachment proceedings. Buck and Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado are members of that committee.
The impeachment-friendly group also includes Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who last year announced she was filing articles of impeachment against Biden over his handling of the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.
Other Republicans who have indicated or asserted support for impeachment of Biden include Reps. Madison Cawthorn and Greg Murphy of North Carolina, Reps. Brian Babin and Randy Weber of Texas, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Bob Gibbs of Ohio, and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
This position was dismissed by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who earlier this month said of a Biden impeachment, “We’re not going to use it for political purposes.”
Buck added during the town hall that he had not determined whether Biden should be impeached.
“I will not make a judgment before I hear all the facts for any impeachment that comes before the House, and that includes anything that happens in the next two years with President Biden,” Buck said.
During the tele-town hall, during which listeners participate by phone, Buck also took questions on the sustainability of Social Security, the war in Ukraine, the economy, immigration, Second Amendment freedoms, energy production, emergency government powers during the pandemic, and perceived censorship of conservative voices.
He downplayed climate change in response to a question from a listener, who referred to record temperatures and frequent wildfires in Colorado as “really real and kind of scary.”
“The forest fires we have in Colorado are a complex issue,” Buck said. “They are not simply a matter of drought or simply a matter of a very minuscule increase in the temperature of the planet. We have poor forest management. We have other factors that are part of those forest fires.”
Another listener mentioned Buck’s sponsorship of a bill that brought Camp Amache, a World War II-era Japanese American internment camp in Buck’s district, under the National Park Service umbrella for preservation, and asked the congressman at what age it’s appropriate to teach children about the site and other difficult subjects from American history, such as slavery.
Buck said that decisions on education should be made at the local level. Explaining his support for the bill, he said the idea that Americans because of their race or national origin could be placed in a detention camp is “terrible.”
“And we should learn from it,” he added. “I also think that we absolutely have to teach our young children about slavery, and how horrible slavery is and how it really stained the reputation of our founders. Our founders had a great vision. And we should never let Americans forget the fact that their vision is so important to where we are today. But they were human. And they made mistakes. And slavery was one of the mistakes that some of those founders made.”
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