Biden emerges from first House Republican impeachment threat unscathed
Naomi Lim
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House Republican attempts to impeach President Joe Biden have created fissures in the conference and provided the president with an opportunity to appear above the political fray in the same week his son Hunter Biden reached a plea deal for alleged federal tax and gun crimes.
But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his allies are standing by their decision to delay a quick impeachment vote, a win for Biden, after they censured Rep. Adam Shiff (D-CA) for his role in investigating former President Donald Trump‘s connections to Russia.
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Republicans such as strategist Cesar Conda, former chief of staff to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and a founding partner of lobbying firm Navigators Global, agreed with McCarthy’s response to Rep. Lauren Boebert‘s (R-CO) impeachment resolution, despite the optics.
“Democrats have cheapened impeachment of the president [and] rendered it little more than a censure,” he told the Washington Examiner. “Impeachment has become little more than a tool to fire up the base of both parties.”
One House Republican aide added Congress has the important responsibility of holding the executive branch of government “to account” and that impeachment is a “solemn” tool of congressional authority that should not be used “willy nilly.” For the staffer, the news media also had a part to play as oversight investigations “follow the facts” and lawmakers exercise their “power of the purse.”
“I don’t think the administration has been pressed in a way that reflects reality,” he said.
But by requiring McCarthy to redirect Boebert’s articles of impeachment charging Biden with high crimes and misdemeanors for his management of the southern border to the relevant House committees, which are not compelled to act, Republicans were being their own worst enemy, according to Brookings Institution’s former vice president and governance studies director Darrell West.
“They are seeking to say Biden is extreme and partisan, but some within the GOP want to impeach the president,” he said. “Their efforts have been disorganized and chaotic and led to fighting within the caucus. It takes the focus off of Biden and makes Republicans look like they don’t have a coherent strategy.”
White House Counsel’s Office spokesman Ian Sams concurred: “Instead of working with President Biden on solutions to the issues that matter most to the American people, like creating jobs, lowering costs and strengthening healthcare, extreme House Republicans are staging baseless political stunts that do nothing to help real people and only serve to get themselves attention.”
West, too, was not certain about how the public would perceive the House Republican push, contending voters are weary of impeachment proceedings “unless something really egregious takes place.”
Republicans were “wise” not to proceed with impeachment, per Rutgers University history, journalism, and media studies professor David Greenberg, describing Boebert’s measure as “pretty ridiculous.”
“But it would have been better to squelch the thing before it got any media coverage whatsoever,” Greenberg said. “If you recall, there were Democrats in the ’80s who wanted to impeach Reagan over Iran-Contra. Some Democrats wanted to impeach George W. Bush over Iraq. The leadership never let it go anywhere and wisely so.”
“It is not going to help the Republicans politically to talk as if Biden is the second coming of [Richard] Nixon or Trump,” he added.
Boebert’s introduced her motion in a process streamlined because it was deemed to be privileged, calling it the first time in 24 years a “House Republican-led majority” is “moving forward” with impeachment against a current president.
“Joseph R. Biden Jr. has abused the powers of the office of president of the United States,” she said.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) endorsed Boebert, asserting Biden “refuses to follow the laws of the United States.”
But Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), hours after his conference protested House Republicans for Schiff, the 25th member to be reprimanded in such a manner, criticized her.
“Nothing about this is serious — not the process, not the intentions of the resolution sponsor, not the impeachment case, not a single damn thing,” he said.
Boebert impeachment articles coincide with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s (R-FL) second move to censure Schiff, the former House Intelligence Committee chairman, after which House Democrats surrounded him and shouted “Shame!” at McCarthy.
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“Reminder: Schiff used his position on the Intelligence Committee to lie about the Russia collusion hoax, lie about Hunter Biden’s laptop, and lie about his staff not speaking with an impeachment whistleblower,” Republican National Committee spokesman Tommy Pigott told reporters.
The RNC similarly amplified House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith‘s (R-MO) claim that, in addition to an IRS whistleblower alleging there were “political considerations” in the federal agency’s investigation into Hunter Biden, there are allegedly multiple whistleblowers “describ[ing] how the Biden Justice Department intervened and overstepped in a campaign to protect the son of Joe Biden.”