A number of Fox News hosts have openly expressed skepticism about the House Republican attempts to impeach President Joe Biden, or noted the lack of evidence to back up the corruption allegations.
The House of Representatives voted 221-212 along party lines to formally open an impeachment inquiry into Biden over allegations he personally profited from his son Hunter Biden's foreign business deals while in office. The launching of the formal inquiry will give the Ways and Means, Judiciary, and Oversight committees more legal power to issue subpoenas for their probe.
The allegations at the center of the impeachment have been denied by the White House and Hunter Biden's lawyers, and the inquiry has faced criticism that it has uncovered no meaningful evidence. The White House previously described the attempts by the GOP to impeach Biden as "sad, pathetic, and a waste of everyone's time."
While the conservative news network is still overwhelmingly negative and partisan in its coverage of Joe and Hunter Biden, one person who has also frequently talked down the impeachment probe of the president is Fox and Friends co-host Steve Doocy. In a recent episode of the morning show, Doocy noted House Republicans have "got a lot of ledgers and spreadsheets, but they have not connected the dots" to suggest wrongdoing by the president.
In a Thursday episode of the show, Doocy also noted that Republican Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley recently admitted that the impeachment inquiry has "no evidence" against Biden.
"He said to CNN, the facts haven't taken me to that point where I can say that the president is guilty of anything," Doocy said, adding that Grassley is someone who has "looked at everything" having led the Senate's side of the investigation.
Doocy's repeated criticism of the impeachment investigation has resulted in Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, one of the House Republicans leading the inquiry, announcing he would be boycotting appearances on Fox and Friends.
"He's had that position from the very beginning. I quit going on Fox and Friends because of Doocy," Comer said in an interview with Newsmax. "He's the one guy on Fox that's been very critical of the investigation. I have my theory why, we'll talk about that at the later point. At the end of the day, he's entitled to his opinion, but I don't think the average viewer of Fox News agrees with Doocy one bit."
Fox News has been contacted for comment via email.
Fox News' Bret Baier also recently pressed House Speaker Mike Johnson for supporting the impeachment inquiry into Biden, which was launched by his predecessor Kevin McCarthy without a House vote, despite previously attacking "single party" impeachments when the Democrats did the same thing against Donald Trump.
"The founders of this country warned against a single party impeachment for good reason. They feared that it would bitterly and perhaps irreparably divide our nation," Johnson said during a December 2019 House debate on impeaching Trump over allegations he threatened to withdraw military aid to Ukraine unless the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, promised to investigate Hunter Biden's business dealings.
"I hope and pray that future Congresses can and will exercise greater restraint."
After playing the clip on his show, Baier asked Johnson if moderate Republicans who are currently expressing doubt about the Biden inquiry should be asking "why not exercise greater restraint now?" ahead of the impeachment vote on Wednesday.
Johnson said he stood by his 2019 comments, but that there's "a big distinction" between what the GOP is doing now and the first "rushed, sham" impeachment against Trump.
Elsewhere, Fox News' White House correspondent Peter Doocy—Steve Doocy's son— also told viewers that despite the Oversight committee being "at this for years" that they have "so far not been able to provide any concrete evidence that Joe Biden personally profited from his son Hunter's overseas business, but they are going to try again with this impeachment inquiry that's set to start next week."
On Wednesday, Hunter Biden defied a congressional subpoena to appear for a behind-closed door deposition in front of House Republicans who are looking into his business dealings. The president's son said he agreed for an interview, but only at a public hearing.
"Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry or hear what I have to say. What are they afraid of? I'm here. I'm ready," Hunter Biden said outside the Capitol in Washington D.C.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
fairness meter
To Rate This Article
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
