Will President Joe Biden be impeached in 2023? Normally, the answer would seem no.
(Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here.)
The loudest voices in Congress calling for this have so far been Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida. These two are primarily good at getting on TV and don’t seem to aspire at being good at anything else.
But in the closing weeks of 2022, some rather sober-minded and astute conservative commentators began to suggest impeachment. That suggest momentum could increase.
National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and brilliant legal commentator, and The Spectator’s Ben Domenech (a.k.a. Mr. Megan McCain) both said the impeachment of Biden is warranted. These guys aren’t firebrands by any stretch.
Whatever Andrew McCarthy thinks, another McCarthy—presumptive incoming Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., isn’t keen on impeaching Biden. Though McCarthy is likely to clinch the House speakership, he won’t likely be a strong speaker. He could also be pushed around by the hardliners in his caucus. On the flipside, with such a thin Republican majority, an actual impeachment would require buy-in from every faction of the House GOP.
That might be less insurmountable than it seems. Recall that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wasn’t very interested in impeaching President Donald Trump early on. But the firebrands in her caucus pushed both her and the moderates into impeaching Trump over his Ukraine phone call that didn’t include a discernable high crime or misdemeanor.
National Review’s McCarthy is calling to impeach Biden over abandoning the southern border. Plenty of Republicans are already on board with impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for letting the border collapse. But McCarthy argues under the unitary executive standard, a Cabinet secretary is only implementing the elected president’s policies.
Andrew McCarthy—who opposed the first Trump impeachment over Ukraine—supports impeaching Biden on a charge of “dereliction of duty” for failing to act as president to protect the border. Interestingly, McCarthy supported Trump’s second impeachment over the Jan. 6 riot. But he thought “incitement to insurrection” was the wrong charge. Rather, he said that Trump should have been impeached for “dereliction of duty” for failing to take action as president to protect the Capitol.
“Yet there must be an impeachment investigation and, if Biden fails to change course, articles of impeachment,” McCarthy wrote. “That would forever stain him, which he deserves; more significantly, it would force the Senate to shut down other business and conduct a trial that would expose the depth of our security catastrophe and the fact that Democrats have willfully caused it. If Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Mitch McConnell don’t fancy that prospect, here’s a suggestion: Fix the friggin’ border.”
He previously believed an impeachment should only come after building a viable political case, gaining the support of the country, with at least some bipartisanship. He conceded that’s not possible in this case, but it doesn’t really matter.
“To begin with, even if Biden were emboldened by acquittal, the damage to the country could not get much worse: Without a border, we won’t have a country,” he added. “If there were an armed invasion of just a few thousand foreigners — a bare fraction of the foreigners now pouring in, who, while mostly unarmed, are transporting not-insignificant amounts of deadly illegal narcotics — a president who refused to act would be impeached and removed forthwith. Biden is not merely refusing to act; he is intentionally doubling down on policies that exacerbate the crisis. To compare, the January 6 Committee convincingly contends that Trump is unfit for the presidency because he not only failed to respond decisively to the Capitol riot but took actions that exacerbated it.”
Domenech by contrast is proposing to impeach Biden over information from the Twitter files that shows Biden White House officials ordered Twitter to censor information from top doctors at top medical schools that wasn’t in line with the administration’s line on COVID-19.
“President Joe Biden repeatedly directed his staff to silence Americans on Twitter who disagreed with his policies,” Domenech said in a tweet thread. “Joe Biden should be impeached.”
“Taking sides against the First Amendment in such an egregious way is treachery worthy of high crimes and misdemeanors. If Trump had called NBC and told them to fire Rachel Maddow or risk their license, it would be no different.”
An intentional failure to protect the country from a flood of human traffickers, an onslaught to fentanyl from the border—and an apparent assault on the First Amendment—would be serious charges. But it is a novelty in some sense for an impeachment, which is supposed to be based on treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
The House Judiciary Committee passed articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon in Watergate that involves actual alleged crimes, prompting Nixon to preempt an impeachment with his resignation. Whatever one thinks of the impeachments of Presidents Andrew Johnson or Bill Clinton, these presidents were impeached by the House based on alleged violations of the law.
In the case of Clinton, it was for perjury and obstruction of justice regarding covering up his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In the case of Johnson for violation of the Tenure of Office Act, firing a Cabinet secretary without approval of the Senate. The Supreme Court later determined the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional—but at the time of the Johnson impeachment, it was a duly enacted law that Johnson knowingly disregarded.
Trump’s second impeachment was based on a criminal charge, or at least criminal-ish, with “incitement to insurrection.” That was lacking the obvious fundamental flaw of the first impeachment over an improper phone call for “abuse of power,” which could mean almost anything, and “obstruction of Congress,” which seemed to try to blend the crimes of “obstruction of justice” with “contempt for Congress.” The first Trump impeachment lowered the bar for all future impeachments—and that’s unfortunate. But it also means impeachment might be applicable to Biden by the Democrats 2019 standard.
Further, there is zero chance of a Senate removal with 67 senators voting to convict in a Democratic chamber that now has a real majority—51 senators. So, what would be the point?
It’s not clear how impeaching Biden in the House would be a wise political move, short of a stain on his presidency. That isn’t to say there won’t be a clear-cut case.
There will be—and rightfully so—an investigation into how his son Hunter Biden and brother Jim Biden have been influence peddling off the Biden name in the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Incoming committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., says this will be a probe of Joe Biden. That doesn’t mean anything impeachable will result, but there are certain matters the public should know about.
Impeachment should be deliberative and measured. Any impeachment, even if it’s unlikely to end in an actual removal, there is at least a chance that a duly elected president could be ousted. It can’t degenerate into simply trying to stain the legacy of a president.
More: MAGA Needs To Move on From Donald Trump
More: Would Putin Dare Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine?
More: Putin’s War Machine Won’t Fight in Ukraine?
Still, it’s significant that talk of impeachment has stretched to calm, more intellectual elements of the right. This would seemingly make a Biden impeachment nominally more likely in 2023—because they are not likely to strike in 2024.
Barbara Joanna Lucas is a writer and researcher in Northern Virginia. She has been a healthcare professional, political blogger, is a proud dog mom, and news junkie. Follow her on Twitter @BasiaJL.

Marty Trilot
January 2, 2023 at 9:16 pm
Could he be impeached? He will be impeached. He will be criminally tried, and the POS will die in prison.
Mike Browne
January 4, 2023 at 9:38 am
Why would Joe Biden be impeached?! He’s done a phenomenal job considering what he was up against when elected.
Madonna
January 4, 2023 at 11:40 am
Wow, the Republicans didn’t need Trump to be crazy, it was in them the whole time! I wish my drugs were as good as Domenech.
Harold Johnson
January 4, 2023 at 9:41 pm
You must be talking about Trump spending time in prison. For one thing, he is a thief. He had no authority to take those documents from the White House. That is a crime. No one should be above the law, regardless of his or her position.
Rodney
January 5, 2023 at 9:59 am
The only thing preventing Biden from being impeached would be the usual Republican lethargy (they’re a party that loves to talk and hates to do anything). But just to give a few indisputable examples of things Biden should be impeached for:
1) Thousands of people died because Biden allowed un-vaccinated people into the country illegally during a pandemic. As a result, more people died of Covid in Summer 2021 than did in all of 2020. He belongs in prison for this, but impeachment would have to suffice.
2) Biden has taken bribes from foreign powers. Confirmed by his own son’s words. The FBI has had a couple of years to dispel this and has failed to do so. Bribery is explicitly a High Crime under the Constitution.
3) Biden openly confessed to one High Crime, where he admitted on film that he had threatened to withhold aid money unless he got a favor. The Democrats themselves admit that this is impeachable, as they impeached for the exact same thing, even knowing that the evidence didn’t support the charge.
4) Election Tampering, having his enemies investigated endlessly, without evidence of wrongdoing, in order to affect future election results. Again, the Democrats themselves admitted in 2020 that investigating a Presidential Candidate was impeachable, so this isn’t disputable either.
There are more that could be named, but that’s enough to make the point. In all four cases, it’s indisputable that a) the crime was committed, and b) that it’s impeachable.
Jim Callis
January 5, 2023 at 12:46 pm
We all know the mental status of Biden warrants him to be removed from office. We have allowed someone who is legitimately demented to lead the country. Why haven’t we removed him? Many people talk about how it may be considered elderly abuse to continue as is. Come on, he has rabbits directing him. Clear instruction hoping to guide his actions–which more often than not–no help at all. His aimless wonderings on stage and attempts at shaking hands with–no one. his weird ramblings and sentence structure resembling a schizophrenic. Let’s be honest, we prefer this demented old guy over the one who would replace him, that clueless VP. Are we ready for a female President? Absolutely. Just not her. How sad is that.
rob
January 5, 2023 at 5:27 pm
the anti Biden comments are DELUSIONAL., they focus on bogus lies while ignoring the DAILY crimes committed by the imbecile trump and family
Roy
January 6, 2023 at 2:08 pm
I can’t believe some people are so stupid as to think Biden has done anything good while in political office, he is stupid, corrupt, and the biggest liar ever to hold the office of president. being put in prison is too kind he should be put before a firing squad.
Ray W Daniels
January 8, 2023 at 10:06 am
Let me tell you, the writer of this article is a demo and she rather have a crook in a chair that should have not gotten! So, biden should have been impeach the first year. But jerks like McConnel should also been reduced to citizen. So we will wait for the communist to take over with out firing a shot! And it is discusting how far we let this go.
GhostTomahawk
January 8, 2023 at 4:05 pm
So we have:
Abandoning the border
Censoring the media that doesn’t tow the Biden line.
Taking money from foreign govts.
Abandoning US citizens in Afghanistan.
If the Senate refuses to impeach then an insurrection is the only recourse for the US populace for an alleged chief executive who is clearly dereliction his duty by the democrats impeachment standards.
Bernard Lowsky
January 9, 2023 at 11:16 am
When will these individuals realize that we have been taken over by the infiltration of illegal immigrants. When will they realize that Biden should be put away as a criminal allowing our children to die from the drugs coming in thru our borders. When will they realize he and his son is in bed with some criminals in Ukraine. We are heading towards political revenge rather than fix these problems
Rick Rogers
January 9, 2023 at 11:24 am
Sounds like the writer is just a vindictive witch. (Insert a B instead of a W if you desire)