Biden's impeachment may be inevitable — but House Democrats aren't quite ready to acknowledge that

"I wouldn't be surprised if they put impeachment on the floor with zero evidence," said Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida.

• The House will vote Wednesday evening on formalizing its impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
• After that point, it's difficult to imagine that impeachment won't happen, justified or not.
• But some Democrats are still raising doubts about that.

Some House Republicans have been discussing the idea of impeaching President Joe Biden since he took office nearly three years ago.

On Wednesday evening, they're set to take one step closer, voting to formalize an ongoing impeachment inquiry into whether the president used his position to help his son Hunter's business dealings — or financially benefitted himself.

Republicans have yet to establish clear, concrete evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Biden, pointing instead to a series of payments between family members and contacts that Biden had with his son during business meetings.

Yet it would be historic if Republicans didn't eventually impeach Biden.

Just two previous American presidents have faced an impeachment inquiry without an eventual impeachment vote. In 1860, Democrat James Buchanan fully survived an impeachment inquiry, while Republican Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before an impeachment vote could take place.

Former President Donald Trump, the all-but-certain 2024 GOP presidential nominee, has been demanding Biden's impeachment for months, and support for impeachment among Republicans remains in the 70s, per recent polling.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they put impeachment on the floor with zero evidence," said Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida, the Gen Z member of the House Oversight Committee, the lead committee pursuing impeachment.

But not all of Frost's colleagues are there yet.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said he didn't think Republicans would "have the votes" to do it, given the party's shrinking majority in the wake of George Santos's expulsion and Kevin McCarthy's early retirement.

"It's like an Agatha Christie novel over there," Raskin quipped, referring to the English mystery novelist whose characters often mysteriously die. "So I don't think it's inevitable at all. I don't even know if their majority's inevitable when we get into the new year."

"I know their base wants it," said Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York. "I'm an optimistic guy, so my hope is that there are a few reasonable people who will stop this."

"I really have no idea," said Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania. "It is absolutely absurd."

For now, House Republicans are arguing that impeachment is not inevitable, and that the inquiry is merely an attempt to get past stonewalling by the White House. That's the kind of reasoning that's kept Republicans in swing districts on board with the effort.

"Once you get on that train at the first stop, you're pretty much going to take the whole ride," said Raskin.

But 2024 is going to be an election year, and in today's GOP, there's likely to be more political upside in voting with the base — regardless of whatever emerges from the inquiry — than breaking with the party on principle.

The one Republican who's done that so far — Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado — happens to be retiring from Congress.

Biden's supporters have also eagerly noted statements from Republicans that appear to be saying the quiet part out loud, including House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan recently referencing the impeachment inquiry in the same breath as presidential polling.

Rep. Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania also recently described impeachment as a "political exercise," while Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas said impeachment was about giving Trump "a little bit of ammo to fire back" at Biden.

Boyle, the Pennsylvania congressman, also suggested that there could be an upside for Democrats in all of this, citing President Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998, which was followed by modest Republican electoral losses.

"If they really do go down the road and impeach Joe Biden for having done absolutely nothing, there is the potential that drives home more of the right-now-skeptical members of the president's base," said Boyle.

"In terms of the institution, I don't want to see it," Boyle added. "But politically, I wouldn't be surprised if it helped Biden more than it hurt."