Hoyer on Impeachment: No Thoughts

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is back on with his plans to introduce articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney, scoring a symbolic victory for the anti-war liberals.

But, bad news for impeachment backers: as of now, it's not happening.

This is in no way a statement one way or the other about the validity of such charges, merely a reality check based on a run-in Capitol Briefing just had with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who is the man in charge of scheduling legislation for the House floor.

We caught up with Hoyer and showed him a copy of the press release announcing Kucinich's planned 5 p.m. presser to roll out the impeachment articles. [Check The Sleuth for the back-and-forth in that process.]

After explaining that Kucinich himself was hand delivering the releases to reporters in the Speaker's Lobby, just off the House floor, Hoyer was asked for his thoughts on the matter.

"My thought is, he was busily engaging in handing that out," Hoyer said, politely handing the impeachment release back to Capitol Briefing. "Beyond that, I don't have any thought about it."

Ouch.

Earlier in the day, a different reporter asked Hoyer about Kucinich's plan, prompting Hoyer to deflect the issue and say it was a matter for the Judiciary Committee. Then, he added that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wanted to focus on "substance", an apparent dismissal of the issue.

"Some time ago Speaker Pelosi indicated that what we need to do is focus on the substance of the issues at hand, and that's what we're going to do," Hoyer told reporters. "That's as far as I'm going to go."