There are many Republican lawmakers who likely spend far too much time focused on how they could impeach President Joe Biden – but this week, former President Donald Trump has only served to egg them on.
“Any Republican that doesn’t act on Democratic fraud should be immediately primaried and get out,” Trump, currently the GOP frontrunner in the lead-up to next year’s presidential primaries, told supporters at a campaign rally Saturday in Erie, Pennsylvania. “We got a lot of good, tough Republicans around. People are going to run against them and people are going to win.”
Trump – who was twice impeached – has continued to pressure House Republicans as he faces numerous indictments, including for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“They impeach me, they indict me,” Trump said at the rally in Erie. “And the Republicans just don’t fight the way … they’re supposed to fight.”
Moving Towards Impeachment
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had resisted calls from the hard-line supporters of Trump’s to impeach President Joe Biden, and in April even warned against pursuing the president’s removal from office.
Yet, as investigations into the business dealings of Hunter Biden, the president’s trouble son, have emerged, McCarthy has signaled that the matter was worthy of investigation. The closed-door testimony of former Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer reportedly included the “proof” that President Biden may have lied when he said he never talked to his son about the younger Biden’s foreign business dealings.
Democrats have suggested the testimony showed the opposite – that the president had not been involved in those business affairs.
McCarthy has said that the GOP-led investigation would rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry. That’s not the same as a full-speed charge ahead, however.
“What an impeachment inquiry does, when you vote on the floor, is it gives you the apex of power of Congress,” McCarthy told reporters on Thursday.
A Dangerous Move by Trump and GOP?
An impeachment inquiry or other proceedings would be the first step towards bringing articles of impeachment, and it could be as fast or slow as McCarthy sees fit. That could include it stretching well into the 2024 campaign season.
Yet, that could present its own problems – notably for Republicans in districts that Biden won in 2020. Republicans had argued that the impeachments against former President Trump were politically motivated, so it is hard to see how Democrats – and more importantly voters – wouldn’t see the same thing.
Any impeachment proceedings could hurt Republicans in swing districts.
“Every time we walk the plank we are putting moderate members, members that won Biden districts, we are putting those seats at risk for 2024. We are putting the majority at risk,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said in an interview with “Fox News Sunday.”
DeSantis Echoed Trump
Former President Trump isn’t the only one who has urged an impeachment of President Biden, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – Trump’s closet GOP rival in recent polls – also said he supported at least the inquiry.
“And the inquiry into Biden, I think that they should pursue that,” DeSantis said in a Newsmax interview that aired Tuesday. “The corruption is just incredible with what’s happened there.”
Author Experience and Expertise
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
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