The U.S. House of Representatives did not impeach Joe Biden

By: Nikolaj Kristensen
July 5 2023

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Context

Videos on social media claim that U.S. president Joe Biden has been impeached after a vote in the House of Representatives. The videos show footage of the Congress passing a bill by a 219 - 208 vote. 

Though the passed bill – House Resolution 529 – was indeed related to another – House Resolution 503 – that called for the impeachment of the president, it did not impeach the president. Instead, it referred House Resolution 503 to two committees of the House of Representatives for consideration. 

In Fact 

On June 22, 2023, the House of Representatives passed House Resolution 529 in a 219 - 208 vote. The resolution did not impeach President Biden, David Alan Sklansky, a Stanford University criminal law professor, told Logically Facts, “Instead, it referred an earlier bill that would impeach the President to two committees of the House of Representatives, for the committees to consider and then, possibly, report back to the full House of Representatives with recommendations about whether to adopt the resolution, as proposed or in some modified form,” he said. 

The earlier bill, House Resolution 503, was introduced by Republican Lauren Boebert on June 13, 2022, and it called to impeach the president on charges of “high crimes and misdemeanors” due to his handling of the U.S. border with Mexico. According to Boebert, Biden has failed to enforce immigration laws and secure the border against drug imports. The bill caused a backlash among House Republicans as it was introduced before the House’s Oversight Committee plans to finish its investigations into the Biden family and was not expected to pass in the Republican-controlled House. Instead, the House passed a resolution to send bill 503 for review by the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees.

According to Sklansky, it is normal for chambers of Congress to send a bill to a committee for consideration. “Most bills that are ultimately adopted are first referred to committee. But most bills referred to committee never wind up adopted,” he said. 

After the vote, Boebert told reporters that if the committees drag their feet, she would bring her resolution back to the House floor “every day for the rest of my time here in Congress.” Boebert is known as a conservative hard-liner and member of the Freedom Caucus, generally considered the most right-wing bloc of Congress, and aligned with former president Donald Trump. 

Representative Bennie Thompson, a Democrat of Mississippi, told the New York Times that he didn’t think Boebert’s resolution had anything to do with border security. To him, it was just an effort to distract from the wrongdoings of Donald Trump, who has lately been charged with retaining classified documents.

The Verdict

The bill passed in the House of Representatives on June 22 did not impeach President Biden. Instead, it referred an earlier bill that would have impeached the president to the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees for consideration. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.