Former President Trump has been keeping close ties with House Republicans as they barrel toward an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
Trump has privately discussed the inquiry with members of the House Freedom Caucus and other top Republicans, The New York Times reported. These discussions come as Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) directed committees Tuesday to open a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden based on House probes into his family’s foreign business dealings and the prosecution of his son Hunter Biden.
Just two days ahead of McCarthy’s announcement, Trump met with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey. Greene said in an interview with the Times that she told Trump that she wanted the impeachment inquiry to be “long and excruciatingly painful” for Biden.
“I did brief him on the strategy that I want to see laid out with impeachment,” she said.
Greene also said she wanted to have a “long list of names” of people she claimed are co-conspirators in alleged crimes committed by Biden’s family, adding that she aims “to go after every single one of them and use the Department of Justice to prosecute them.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the House Republican Conference chairwoman, also spoke with the former president shortly after McCarthy gave the impeachment inquiry the green light.
“I speak to President Trump a lot. I spoke to him today,” Stefanik told reporters on Tuesday, adding that she believes the Biden family’s business dealings are “the biggest political corruption scandal of our lifetime.”
The Times also reported Stefanik has spoken weekly with Trump over the past month, and she has discussed impeachment inquiry strategies with the former president. A person familiar with the conversations told the newspaper Trump thanked Stefanik for supporting the inquiry.
The former president has been outspoken about his support for an impeachment inquiry into Biden as he labels his legal troubles as politically motivated.
“Biden is a Stone Cold Crook — You don’t need a long INQUIRY to prove it, it’s already proven,” he wrote in a Truth Social post last month. “These lowlifes Impeached me TWICE (I WON!), and Indicted me FOUR TIMES – For NOTHING! Either IMPEACH the BUM, or fade into OBLIVION. THEY DID IT TO US!”
During his tenure in the White House, Trump was the subject of two impeachment inquiries.
The Hill has reached out to the offices of Greene and Stefanik for comment.