Democrats See Advantage in Republican Impeachment – Democrats have hopes that the lust for revenge and impeaching President Joe Biden and members of his administration among House Republicans will backfire to his advantage in 2024.
Joe Biden Impeachment: Democrats Love the GOP Infighting Over It
The Republican drive to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998 for perjury in his deposition in Paula Jones sexual harassment case was credited for their losses in that year’s midterm elections that year.
They watch with glee as prominent House Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert rip each other apart over whose articles of impeachment ought to be used against Joe Biden. Former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz pointed out that their push to impeach the president due to his administration’s inflammation of the border crisis rests on questionable constitutional grounds.
“The Republicans were only getting started last month when Marjorie Taylor Greene called Lauren Boebert ‘a little *****’ on the House floor in a dispute over whose effort to impeach Joe Biden should take priority. But now the Republicans appear to have a dizzying array of targets in addition to the president, as The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. And rather than quaking in terror, Democrats should be shouting, ‘Bring it on.’ Impeachment fever may be emotionally satisfying for the Republicans, but the frenzy comes with political costs for the GOP in 2024 and beyond,” The New Republic columnist Walter Shapiro wrote.
Impeachment Now a Political Messaging Tool
Impeachments are becoming a sort of vote of no confidence or legislative displeasure in the president and his administration.
No one readily believes that 67 Senators will vote to remove Joe Biden or anyone else for that matter.
Democrats came 11 votes shy of declaring Trump removed from office in February 2021 after the expiration of his term.
“For those Senate Republicans uncomfortable with the GOP’s MAGA momentum, an impeachment trial on trumped-up charges would be political agony. A vote of “not guilty” would only arouse right-wing ire, while endorsing the flimsy impeachment case brought by House Republicans would be another profile in cowardice,” Shapiro wrote. “For Ted Cruz, about the only potentially vulnerable Senate Republican on the 2024 ballot, a vote to convict would probably cost him moderate votes in the Dallas and Houston suburbs.”
Shapiro argues that Republicans make a mistake in “normalizing the extreme constitutional remedy of impeachment.” Arguably Democrats set the precedent for trivial impeachments when they chose to impeach Trump over his call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asking him to investigate Biden’s role in the firing of Ukraine’s prosecutor general Viktor Shokin.
At the time of the call in the summer of 2019, it was not a foregone public conclusion that Biden would be the Democrats’ nominee due to the power of Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders’ candidacy. In contrast with the Clinton impeachment for perjury which crossed the line into an actual crime having allegedly been committed, the Trump impeachment was purely political.
He notes that NYU Law Professor Bob Bauer, husband of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, argued in a 2019 paper that the Senate is not constitutionally obliged to hold an impeachment trial.
The Effort to Get Joe Biden
The Biden effort to get former Ukrainian President Poroshenko to drop former prosecutor Vickor Shokin has re-emerged as a possible cause for impeachment. The Republican disclosure of an unvetted FBI FD-1023 form alleges that Biden took a $5 million bribe from a Burisma executive in exchange for twisting Poroshenko’s arm.
Dershowitz argues this would be a textbook case for impeachment if the Republicans can make their case.
GOP Disorganization Undermines Impeachment Effort
Republicans have shown disorganization and a less than methodical investigative strategy since taking over Congress that has frustrated some allies.
“Since taking over the House in January, the Republicans have provided scant evidence that they know how to run a compelling congressional hearing. So it strains credulity that the so-called evidentiary hearings leading up to a House vote on impeachment of Biden or a Cabinet member would sway anyone who doesn’t already live in the right-wing fever stamps,” Shapiro said. “But McCarthy’s minions only believe in conspiracy theories, temper tantrums, and the greatness of their defrocked president. So if the Republicans want to play impeachment, the Democrats have a ready response: ‘Peachy.’”
John Rossomando was a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
From 19FortyFive
Joe Biden Is Starting To Scare Everyone
