Impeaching Joe Biden would be a vote of no confidence just like Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
The chances of removing Biden from office for alleged corruption are slim and none. However, it would force a conversation in the media about Joe Biden’s activities.
Donald Trump’s first impeachment set a precedent that Democrats are going to regret. It was presumed that impeachment required a crime like perjury which clearly was committed by former President Bill Clinton when he lied under oath in the Paula Jones deposition. Democrats lowered the bar by making impeachment a sign of partisan disapproval.
The former president was impeached for nothing other than asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for an inquiry into Joe Biden’s effort to get Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin fired. Trump’s first impeachment cheapened the impeachment process and reduced it to being a vote of no confidence. Democrats claimed election interference at a time when Biden’s emergence as the Democratic Party nominee was not certain.
Democrats could have waited until the 2020 campaign to unload on Trump, but they instead chose the impeachment route knowing full well that they would not get the 67 votes needed to remove him.
Impeachment a Republican Messaging Tool
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has advised against impeaching Biden because Kamala Harris would be the beneficiary and she’s more radical and likely more incompetent than Biden. Gingrich lost the impeachment fight with Clinton and paid for it with a revolt in the Republican Conference that resulted in his resignation as speaker and from Congress.
Joe Biden is not Bill Clinton. The former president had a knack as a communicator and knew how to connect with the voter in a way that Biden never has. Biden is viewed by the American public as old and out of touch. The third impeachment in six years would be seen as politics as usual.
Thus far major networks have tried to argue that the claims about Biden and the corrupt Ukrainian gas firm Burisma are “debunked” or they have simply refused to cover the Biden allegations.
Those who rely on traditional media sources are unaware of Biden’s alleged corrupt actions. Impeaching Biden during the 2024 election cycle would ensure that bad news about Biden would be in the news cycle at the same time as the bad news about Trump. Impeachment is purely political.
Republicans Need to Find the Fire on Joe Biden
There’s a lot of smoke around Biden but not a lot of fire.
Thus far the allegation found in the FD-1023 that Joe Biden accepted a $5 million bribe in exchange for getting Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin fired has not been corroborated. The FBI informant behind the noted that it was not clear “whether these alleged payments were already made.”
Republicans need corroborating witnesses to further establish corrupt intent on the part of the president in his participation in the deal. The FD-1023 notes that a certain Oleksandr Ostapenko participated in a meeting in Vienna where Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky alleged the payment to Biden had been made.
They need to find Ostapenko and depose him. They also need to potentially get to Zlochevsky himself and depose him. Biden should not be impeached without a second or third source.
Thus far, it is unclear based on Devon Archer’s testimony on Monday what Joe Biden said and how he was involved in Hunter Biden’s business deals. The Treasury Department Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) mention Archer and Hunter Biden, not Joe Biden.
The congressional investigators need a team of forensic accountants to scour the Biden transactions and to go after their accountants to get to the bottom. At this point there’s likely enough to score political points but not enough to get a conviction.
Impeachments are now the American equivalent of a vote of no confidence in the chief executive. Biden might not get removed by Congress, but it could leave enough of a bad taste in the electorate’s mouth to keep swing voters at home on Election Day.
John Rossomando is 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
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