Jan. 6 committee chair uses choice words to smack down Biden impeachment effort

WASHINGTON — Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) is calling the attempt to impeach President Joe Biden outright "bulls--t."

Thompson, who served as the chairman for the House Select Committee investigating 2020 and Jan. 6, told Raw Story at the Capitol on Thursday that the Trump impeachment was for an actual crime. While Republicans search for the crime they can saddle Biden with, Thompson is alleging the comparison is false.

"When I hear what they're saying, they're going to look and see if there is anything," he said, agreeing that Democrats had "multiple smoking guns."

Read More: House Republicans split on whether Joe Biden impeachment is 'a real impeachment' or not

"You would think that if they had something more formally, they would have brought it forward," he continued. "To say we're gonna look and see if there's anything out there to impeach him... we've got a lot more on our plate."

In Thompson's case, the committee did a full investigation that had Republicans willing to stand up and testify against Trump.

"We just presented the facts," he said. "And if you don't like the facts then, I'm sorry."

He went on to call it "unfortunate" that Republicans are going down the path of what he called a revenge impeachment, rather than for a legitimate high crime cited by the legal requirements.

Republicans celebrated the vote to open an impeachment inquiry vote on Wednesday, with one bragging that the purpose was "Trump 2024, baby!"

"The problem is when they're looking at Biden's impeachment, he wasn't in government at the time they're looking at," said Thompson. "There's no high crimes and misdemeanors. I mean, it's just — it's a known fact that on J6 the Capitol was overrun. And that people were hurt. Some died because of it. And we're a better country than that. For them to try and create that this was some conspiracy that impugned the patriots that demonstrate their opinion is too far."

"I'm not surprised by anything I hear coming out of his mouth (Trump's). If you start selling pieces of a suit that you wore when you were indicted, and somehow think that has value... shhhh...." Thompson let out an exasperated sound, shook his head, and walked back toward the House floor.

The Republicans have specifically cited two major things they find suspect in the Biden case. One is that Biden loaned his brother some money and his brother paid it back. In the second, Biden helped his son buy a new truck, and his son paid him back. Republicans have claimed that when the men paid Biden back, it was part of an influence-peddling scheme from China.

This happened in 2018, before Biden announced he was running for president.

Thompson closed by saying he still believes in the country and that people are just "going along" with what they're being told — and he doesn't believe it will stay that way.