Kevin McCarthy to Force Democrats on Record Again with Impeachment Inquiry Vote

House Republican leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) intends to force House Democrats to take another controversial vote by Friday sometime, forcing them on the record on their intent to forcibly impeach President Donald Trump, all as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues to refuse to schedule any actual vote formally opening House impeachment proceedings.

If Speaker Pelosi refuses to seek approval of the whole House in the critical decision of impeachment—as is longstanding practice and precedent—I will again give all members the opportunity to go on record so their constituents can know where they stand on this issue.

— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) September 26, 2019

McCarthy announced his intent to force a second vote, on the same resolution as he did before on Wednesday night, via Twitter on Thursday afternoon in a tweet after acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire testified earlier in the day and the public now has the so-called “whistleblower” complaint that sparked all of this.

“The American people deserve to know where their elected representatives stand on this issue,” a senior House GOP aide involved in House floor proceedings told Breitbart News. “If Speaker Pelosi won’t hold that vote, we will.”

McCarthy forced a House floor vote on Wednesday evening as the GOP leader on a resolution that condemns the way in which Pelosi launched the House’s impeachment inquiry of President Trump. Earlier this week, Pelosi moved the impeachment inquiry forward via announcing it at a press conference–and has not scheduled any votes on the matter at all, what many believe is a transparent effort to shield vulnerable Democrats from being forced to take a position on whether they want to remove the president from office by force.

The Democrats banded together unanimously, with every single Democrat who was present and voting–231 of them in total–voting to uphold Pelosi’s decision to formally proceed with an impeachment inquiry against Trump. That effectively means no Democrat can be ambivalent about it anymore, as they all now support moving forward with impeaching the president–and all the Republicans are against it, as evidenced by their votes in favor of McCarthy’s original resolution.

The House is set to recess for two weeks late Friday, as members go on another vacation after just launching this extraordinary missive against the duly elected president of the United States. The recess is proceeding according to House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who said Thursday at a press conference that members will work during it however. Even so, many Democrats from the far-left of the conference, including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), have called for Pelosi to cancel the recess–something she at this point does not intend to do.

McCarthy, per senior House Republican sources, intends to force the new vote sometime Friday morning and intends to make it the last vote before members head out of Washington for two weeks to keep it fresh in America’s minds that all the Democrats in the House of Representatives support forcibly removing the president from office.

“As if trying to overturn the will of 63 million Americans weren’t bad enough, Pelosi is now usurping the power of every voting member in the House,” the senior House GOP aide said. “Every Democrat–socialist, liberal, moderate–will now have to own the issue of impeachment. They are all in this together.”

“You make your bed, you sleep in it,” the aide added.

What’s also significant about McCarthy’s moves to fight back is that this latest push comes after the publication publicly of the “whistleblower” complaint and Maguire’s testimony. The first vote came after the White House released the transcript of the call between Trump and Ukraine’s new president Volodymyr Zelensky early Wednesday. The effort demonstrates a few things: Firstly, Republicans are still unified behind the president and not splitting–which makes this impeachment inquiry effort purely partisan by the Democrats. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it demonstrates that Republicans intend to make this process as painful as possible for the Democrats politically.

“Leader McCarthy believes that every member owes it to their constituents to make clear whether they stand with Speaker Pelosi on impeachment or not,” another senior House GOP aide told Breitbart News.