Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said Friday that a handful of his Democratic colleagues are "definitely" open to convicting President Joe Biden if he is impeached.
On Wednesday, House Republicans got enough votes to formalize an impeachment inquiry into Biden's alleged involvement in son Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings. The White House and Biden have repeatedly denied that the president ever had anything to do with his son's dealings.
The House Oversight Committee has been investigating the Biden family for months, but the GOP struggled to garner enough votes to legitimize the probe with a full chamber vote until this week.
Appearing on Newsmax's Wake Up America with Rob Finnerty, Mullin gave an inside look at where his colleagues stand if the House votes to impeach Biden following their inquiry and he is brought to the Senate for trial.
"When you talk to some more moderate-leaning senators they will tell you that if the House sends us over an air-tight case that completely easily points to the president breaking law in treason, misdemeanor, high crime, that they would try it just like they would any other case and go into it without a bipartisan look, but as a criminal look," Mullin said.
Finnerty then asked Mullin: "Have any Democratic senators mentioned to you, off the record, again, that they would look at this fairly and objectively? I'm talking about a yes vote on impeaching the president if it gets there."
Mullin replied: "They said if it was a convictable offense, they would definitely be looking to convict. I've had that conversation with five—I will not name them because I don't wanna put them in a position—but five separate senators, all five of them have said the exact same thing. These are senators that I have somewhat of a relationship with, but we usually vote opposite on most things."
Newsweek reached out to Mullin and the White House via email for comment.
Getting Democratic senators to convict a president of their own party may prove to be difficult. When former President Donald Trump was in office, he was impeached by the House twice and acquitted by the Senate both times.
At the end of the Senate trial after his first impeachment, which began in December 2019, Trump was acquitted by a 52-48 vote on an abuse of power charge and a 53-47 vote on an obstruction of Congress charge. Of the 53 Republicans who voted, only one, Mitt Romney of Utah, found Trump guilty on the charge of abuse of power.
Trump was impeached for the second time on January 13, 2021, and was acquitted exactly one month later in a 57-43 vote, which is not the two-thirds majority needed to be found guilty. Of the 50 Republicans who voted, seven found Trump guilty of incitement of insurrection.
Biden on Wednesday night called the vote to formalize an impeachment inquiry a "baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts."
The head of the House Oversight Committee, Republican Representative James Comer of Kentucky, has claimed that the committee obtained financial records showing that the Biden family set up more than 20 shell companies to conceal payments from "foreign adversaries."
Comer said in a press release in early November that the Bidens, along with their business associates and their companies, were paid more than $24 million from China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Kazakhstan.
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