By Kristen Holmes and Eric Bradner | CNN
Donald Trump has publicly and privately encouraged House Republicans’ push to impeach President Joe Biden ahead of their potential rematch in 2024, two sources close to the former president said.
Trump has kept close tabs on the matter, the sources said – including speaking by phone with New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the House GOP conference chair, about the party’s impeachment strategy shortly after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced on Tuesday that he is calling on his committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden.
The former president also had dinner Sunday with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene at his New Jersey golf club, where the two discussed the impeachment inquiry, a source familiar with the conversation told CNN.
The inquiry came amid increasing pressure from McCarthy’s right flank to pursue Biden’s impeachment, even as Republicans have yet to prove allegations he directly profited off his son’s foreign business deals.
Two sources close to Trump insisted that while he had spoken to members about impeachment and kept tabs on House Republicans’ progress on the matter, he was not intensely focused on it and was not forcing the issue.
However, multiple sources said that whether he was forcing the issue or not, the impeachment was inevitably linked to Trump.
“President Trump has gone on his social media account and said that we should be impeaching President Biden. Kevin McCarthy said we have an impeachment inquiry. You draw the conclusion,” Rep. Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican, told CNN. “When President Trump speaks, there’s a whole a lot of activists that get on board and the activists make their members aware of that. And so directly or indirectly, this impeachment inquiry was a result of President Trump’s pressure.”
“He doesn’t need to directly tell people what he wants – they know,” another source close to the former president said.
“President Trump…
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