Will GOP go along with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s impeachment push?
The Georgia Congresswoman recently introduced a resolution to impeach President Joe Biden, for at least the sixth time since he took office.
Will other Republicans go along?
Impeachment Time for Joe Biden?
On Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced plans to impeach President Joseph Biden, citing the “America-last executive branch, that has been working since Jan. 20, 2021, to systematically destroy this country, the president of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden.”
Greene had in fact designated the week before Memorial Day as “Impeachment Week,” even introducing a constituent survey for the occasion. The same week, she had also introduced resolutions to impeach FBI Director Christopher Wray, U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
This was, in fact, at least the sixth time that Greene has attempted to impeach Biden, starting on January 21, 2021, the day after he was sworn in as president. Those articles had called for removing Biden due to “abuse of power by enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors, by allowing his son Hunter Biden to influence the domestic policy of a foreign nation and accept benefits from foreign nationals in exchange for favors.”
None of the previous attempts to impeach Biden have gone anywhere, and for all the talk about Greene’s closeness to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leadership has not shown any indication that they want any part of bringing a full impeachment inquiry on Biden. In addition, Greene introduced the various impeachment resolutions the same week that Washington’s attention was taken up by the debt ceiling negotiations.
Will that change? Greene certainly hopes so.
According to the Washington Times, Greene believes that GOP voters don’t have much confidence that “Republican lawmakers will hold senior Biden administration officials accountable for not cooperating with House investigations”- and that Republican voters may turn on their leaders if action isn’t taken.
“There’s a lot of people that believe that the Republicans actually have to put up or shut up,” Greene told the newspaper in an interview. “We don’t want that reputation anymore with the people where they go, ‘Oh, yeah, they’re just saying this, but they’re not going to do anything about it.’ That’s something that our conference needs to fix. And we need to fix it going into 2024.”
Greene said she has pushed for the Republican conference to move further.
“That’s something I’m urging all the time. I keep saying, ‘Why would [voters] elect us if we just allow this to continue?’ I urge my conference, ‘Why would they vote for us?’” Greene added in the interview.
The Washington Times also cited a recent Rasmussen Reports poll showing that only 28 percent of voters find it likely that Congress will “ go forward with impeachment proceedings against Mr. Biden.”
Why hasn’t the GOP leadership moved to pursue the impeachment of Biden? It would appear the simple answer is that none of the investigations have yet uncovered anything impeachment. It’s also very possible that the Republican leaders don’t consider it productive to pursue such a thing, especially with their slim majority, and with virtually no chance that the Senate’s Democratic majority would vote to remove Biden from office. This is barring the uncovering of any major wrongdoing by the president, but the House GOP has not yet done that.
In President Donald Trump’s first term, Democratic leaders in Congress, especially then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were long reluctant to pursue impeachment of Trump, although Pelosi changed her mind when the then-president’s phone call to Ukrainian president Zelensky came to light. Pelosi was also reportedly resistant to impeaching Trump the second time, after January 6, but that impeachment also took place, although Trump was not removed for disqualified from office either time.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told Punchbowl News in early May that “relative to the president, of course, that’s a decision that’s going to be made by the full Republican Conference and the speaker, and no one’s really focused on that now.”
From 19FortyFive: Are We Watching the End of Donald Trump?
From 19FortyFive: Liz Cheney: Could She Join the Democratic Party?
From 19FortyFive: Liz Cheney: The Next President of the United States?
Expertise and Experience:
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
