The House Republican majority is hitting its stride as a fully weaponized arm of Donald Trump’s bid for a second White House term as it seeks to drag President Joe Biden into a swamp of so far unsubstantiated corruption allegations.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy is for the first time publicly warming to the possibility of an impeachment probe against the president – at a moment when Washington is bracing for a potential third criminal indictment of his predecessor. He first floated the idea on Fox News Monday, then doubled down on Capitol Hill a day later.
“How do you get to the bottom of the truth? The only way Congress can do that is go to an impeachment inquiry,” the California Republican told reporters Tuesday, although he did not formally announce such a probe.
The speaker’s comments were just the latest sign that the House GOP majority is seeking to create a counter-narrative of corruption focusing on Biden to take the heat off the twice-impeached Trump, who faces the historic prospect of being the first ex-president to be criminally tried as he is running for a new White House term.
Perhaps not coincidentally, McCarthy floated his impeachment trial balloon on the eve of a court appearance in which Hunter Biden is expected to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors in a plea arrangement that will also resolve a gun felony charge if he abides by court-imposed rules.
The ‘I’ word – given its constitutional connotations – immediately sent shockwaves running through Washington even as it raised the somewhat fundamental question of precisely which supposed abuses of office House Republicans, who have so far produced no concrete evidence of wrongdoing, were envisaging laying against the president.
But even if they fail to produce such evidence, Republicans may still see an advantage in moving toward impeachment during this politically volatile age when fact and reality are often superseded by what certain political leaders want to be true. A Biden impeachment drama could fire up GOP base voters, please conservative media backers and create a false sense of equivalence over the conduct of Trump and Biden among some voters already exhausted by years of bitter, polarized politics. Most importantly for Trump and the House Republicans doing his bidding, it could distract from the legal storm around the former president.
The prospect of a divisive impeachment battle – in the middle of an election season already reeling from Trump’s two indictments – would surely deepen political divides. After only one presidential impeachment in the first two centuries of US history, Biden’s would be the fourth impeachment in around 25 years if House Republicans follow through. Such a scenario would fuel fears among some historians that the process is no longer a rare constitutional remedy of last resort but is becoming a more regular partisan reflex.
Biden has denied any wrongdoing. Last month, he emphatically stated he was not present when his son Hunter Biden is alleged to have texted a Chinese business partner in 2017, claiming he was sitting with his father. The White House also slammed GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa last week for peddling “debunked” information after he released an internal FBI document containing unverified allegations Joe Biden was involved in a foreign bribery scheme involving the Ukrainian energy company Burisma while he was vice president. The document contained no proof of the allegations or any evidence Biden took part in his son’s work for the firm. There is also no evidence that the president ever received any money from Ukraine.
But Grassley’s move set off a new flurry of coverage critical of Biden on conservative and social media with the potential to further confuse the public.
In another sign of their keen desire to win Trump’s favor, House GOP leaders have also been considering the possibility of legislative action to expunge Trump’s two impeachments – even though such a move would have no constitutional legitimacy. These fresh signs the House Republican majority is marching to Trump’s tune follow its efforts to highlight his claims that he is a victim of a Biden administration effort to weaponize the Justice Department for political gain. And at a hearing earlier this month, the ex-president’s allies lambasted FBI Director Christopher Wray amid conservative fury over the bureau’s role in an investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of national security information. Trump is tentatively set to face trial in that case in May.
A sense that the GOP is more interested in unleashing a Trump-style political spectacle is reinforced not just by its rather thin legislative record, but also by a standoff over a recently passed national defense policy bill. The House’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act – which will have to be reconciled with the Democratic-controlled Senate’s version – was packed with amendments on base-pleasing social measures including efforts to prevent the Pentagon from reimbursing expenses for service members who travel for abortions or reproductive care and to outlaw diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
McCarthy had for months deflected calls for the impeachment of Biden from the most radical members of his conference. The speaker had instead weighed the possibility of an impeachment of an official like Attorney General Merrick Garland or Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who is set to face a dressing down Wednesday over the border crisis in a high-profile House Judiciary Committee hearing.
CNN’s congressional team reported, however, on Tuesday that the speaker had been convinced by colleagues that if he was going to spend time and political capital on impeachment, he may as well aim at the top target.
House Republicans have created a torrent of innuendo and accusations but haven’t laid out evidence of wrongdoing rising to the constitutional standard for impeachment of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors against Biden. Various House committees have been trying, so far without success, to prove their claims that Biden used his power while serving as vice president to enrich his family through his son’s business contacts.
Republicans, citing allegations by two IRS whistleblowers, claim the Department of Justice interfered with the probe into Hunter Biden’s tax affairs. But David Weiss, the Trump-appointed prosecutor in charge of the case, has refuted Republican claims he was forced to go easy on Biden’s son, saying he was never refused authority to bring charges anywhere in the country. Weiss has offered to testify at a congressional hearing this fall. The Justice Department said it’s important for the American people to hear him address “misrepresentations” about the case.
McCarthy’s comments on impeachment mark the latest occasion when the speaker appeased the most right-wing, pro-Trump sectors of his conference on whom his narrow grip on the gavel depends. But ironically, his responsiveness to his right flank also risks alienating the very voters who backed Biden in 2020 but then helped hand control of the chamber to the GOP in last year’s midterms – albeit with a tiny majority.
This is especially the case since forcing more moderate Republicans to cast votes for Biden’s impeachment would essentially be a futile gesture. Democrats control the Senate and would ensure there is not the necessary two-thirds majority to convict and oust Biden after a trial in the chamber.
McCarthy insisted on Tuesday that he was only contemplating an impeachment inquiry – rather than a full-scale drive to an impeachment vote – in the House. This approach could be a way to convince more moderate Republicans that he is merely seeking to access the broader powers needed to get information from the White House and elsewhere that the impeachment inquiries unlock.
One vulnerable GOP lawmaker expressed hesitation about such an inquiry on Tuesday. “I don’t know that we’ve made the case for a formal Impeachment inquiry yet, but I do want the committee digging into this,” Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon said Tuesday.
But if it’s a tightrope walk between radical Republicans demanding impeachment and McCarthy’s most endangered members, it’s a perilous one. Given past form – including in multiple concessions the California lawmaker offered hardliners to win his job – it’s hard to see him facing down his most extreme members. Despite the paucity of concrete evidence against the president, many rank-and-file Republican lawmakers, conservative media commentators and grassroots GOP voters appear to have made up their minds on the president’s guilt already.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer, for instance, insisted that his investigation had unearthed plentiful material to suggest wrongdoing by the president, saying his probe was like “tracking a bleeding bear through a snowstorm. There’s evidence everywhere.” The Kentucky Republican did not reveal the nature of any such evidence.
While impeachment fever is spreading on the GOP benches in the House, senior Republicans in the Senate aren’t exactly welcoming the prospect. South Dakota Sen. John Thune, a member of the chamber’s GOP leadership, said he found the allegations against Biden “pretty troubling.” But he added, in an apparent hint that an impeachment effort could backfire on the GOP, that the “best way to change the government (is) to win the election.” Referring to the GOP in the House, he added: “I don’t know what they got or what evidence they have, but it’s pretty high standards, we all know.”
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted twice to convict Trump in two impeachment trials, also declined to back another impeachment, but advised Biden to “be transparent,” adding that such an approach was the way to make “those things go away.”
Texas Sen. John Cornyn declined to say whether he though impeachment was a good idea, but suggested that Democrats brought such a fate upon themselves. “When you impeach a president twice, then what goes around comes around unfortunately. So, I hate to see us sort of in that mode, but that’s where we are,” Cornyn told CNN’s Manu Raju.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, meanwhile, argued that Trump’s first impeachment had appeared to boost him with his base, raising the possibility that the same thing could happen to Biden. He added, however, that any evidence linking the current commander in chief to his son’s business dealings would be “a game changer, because President Biden’s denied have any interaction regarding business dealings.”
Republicans are yet to show they have a smoking gun to use against Biden. Many of their voters would argue that was also the case when Democrats impeached Trump. But in each of his impeachments, there was a clear narrative of wrongdoing and abuses of power. In the first, an account of a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky showed the then-president using his executive power, the prospect of US military aid and weaponizing US national security to try to coerce Ukraine into an investigation of a future political opponent – Biden. Trump’s second impeachment followed an unprecedented attempt to overthrow a democratic election that he lost and a mob attack on Congress by his supporters, whom he told at a rally to “fight like hell” before they marched on Capitol Hill.
There is nothing as clear cut for Republicans to use to try to impeach Biden. But that doesn’t meant they won’t try anyway.
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