If an impeachment inquiry is going to proceed, it is a good thing for the House to vote for it as a body. The Constitution gives the House, not the speaker, plenary power over impeachment. A vote by the House thus shores up the inquiry’s authority to compel evidence. In impeachment, unlike other legislative proceedings, the House is analogous to a grand jury — i.e., it can legitimately probe whether high crimes and misdemeanors have been committed in the absence of the usually required “legislative purpose” in support of a congressional investigation.

In theory, then, if the House votes to approve the inquiry, it will be harder for Biden administration agencies to refuse to comply with congressional information demands. Note that I said “harder,” not “impossible.” Again, this is a political process. …

Even assuming Johnson can get the inquiry approved — having lost another voting member when Representative George Santos (R., N.Y.) was expelled last week — the impeachment probe still faces significant obstacles.

[McCarthy should have held a vote for it in the first place. He may not have foreseen anyone pulling that incredibly stupid Motion to Vacate stunt and ending his legally shaky personal authorization for the probe, but Republicans rightly objected when Pelosi pulled the same stunt in 2019. Had it been authorized in a floor vote, McCarthy’s status wouldn’t have mattered and the probe would have had a more credible legal foundation. To dissent just a little from Andy’s rational skepticism on one point, one does not necessarily have to foresee an impeachment vote to open an inquiry, let alone a removal vote. This is a step necessary to free the House from the requirement to limit the inquiry to lawmaking processes rather than just conducting a flat-out corruption investigation. In other words, it makes the process more honest, and that’s not a bad thing. — Ed]