Impeachment is rapidly becoming the talk of the town among Congressional Republicans, who believe an inquiry alone will provide answers to pressing questions, but there are many reasons to believe the plan could backfire, big time.
Late last week, a Republican Congressman from Florida, Greg Steube, filed articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden over revelations concerning his involvement in his son’s business dealings. A corresponding statement from Representative Steube claimed, “It’s long past time to impeach Joe Biden. He has undermined the integrity of his office, brought disrepute on the Presidency, betrayed his trust as President, and acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice at the expense of America’s citizens.” The proposed impeachment articles included four charges. First, Representative Steube alleges that the President accepted bribes as Vice President based on the revelations of a confidential human source contained in an explosive FBI document including “payments and business opportunities from foreign and domestic business partners.” The second claims the President obstructed justice after multiple whistleblowers have testified that the investigation into these matters was improperly interfered with, “members of the Biden campaign improperly colluded with Justice Department (DOJ) officials to improperly interfere with investigations into tax crimes alleged to have been committed by Hunter Biden.” The third and fourth accuse Biden of “fraud” and illegal payments on behalf of prostitutes and drugs for his son, charges that, at least to this observer, appear to have much less substantiation than the previous two. “The evidence continues to mount by the day – the Biden Crime Family has personally profited off Joe’s government positions through bribery, threats, and fraud. Joe Biden must not be allowed to continue to sit in the White House, selling out our country,” Representative Steube said. He is not alone in this desire. Other Republicans agree, and the idea has even reached the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. Last month, he said that an impeachment inquiry “allows Congress to get the information to be able to know the truth,” adding “We will follow this to the end.” More moderate Republicans, who control the House of Representatives by the slimmest of margins, have been more reticent. NBC News, for example, recently spoke to New York’s Mike Lawler. “Impeachment should not be political by any stretch. We’ve seen what happens when Congress acts in a political matter — it does not serve the interests of the American people in any way. So the question to me right now is do the investigations — are they producing enough facts and evidence that warrant taking it to the next step? I don’t think it’s there at the moment, but these committees are doing their job.”
Personally, I can understand the temptation and believe there are important questions of both the Biden family and the Department of Justice that demand answers, more on both in a moment, but impeachment strikes me as a fool’s errand, more likely to backfire than anything else for two key reasons. First and most importantly, there is not the slightest chance a conviction would result in a removal in the Senate where the Democrats control the chamber by one vote. With the possible exception of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin – emphasis on possible – there is not a single Democrat who will vote to remove the President from office, transforming serious matters of ethical and potentially criminal conduct into merely a partisan affair. Democrats will instead rally around President Biden and portray him as a victim of Republican overreach, a theme that will be happily spread by an allied media that has already demonstrated their willingness to suppress the truth for almost three years. The failure to remove President Biden from office can only be seen as a victory, and his supporters would promptly claim that he was exonerated whatever the facts, similar to what we saw across not one but two impeachments of former President Donald Trump. Speaker McCarthy and Representative Steube surely know this, making it obvious, at least to me, they are more interested in the inquiry portion conducted by the House of Representatives itself, which Republicans would control given their majority. The process itself is generally seen as more potent by the courts because Congress has identified a “legislative purpose” by passing the bill moving impeachment forward and therefore courts are more deferential to investigatory requests that might otherwise violate Executive Privilege or similar concerns.
The goal would be to force a radical transparency on both the President and Hunter Biden’s business dealings, and the conduct of the Department of Justice in these matters. Given the stakes, Republicans are likely also under the impression there would be more media attention and resulting mindshare from the public. Removing the President from office might not be possible, but a focused investigation and targeted trial in the House of Representatives could set the stage for his defeat in 2024. This view has a certain appeal, I will admit, but it remains unlikely any evidence could be uncovered that would convince a pliant media, much less the Democrat party, that anything illegal has occurred. Over the past several months, we have seen the standard of evidence become a moving target even before such an inquiry. We’ve gone from the President never talking about his business dealings at all – to he took a mild interest – to he spoke to his clients about the weather – to he actually had dinners and other in person meetings, but this is only the “illusion” of access and it doesn’t matter because the GOP has yet to prove the President actually accepted money. The current standard essentially requires the President to be caught on camera in a trench coat accepting cash from a masked foreign national. As Jonathan Turley and others have pointed out, it’s foolish to think anything like that occurred, nor did it need to given Biden’s advanced age, existing wealth, and the fact that Hunter was paying at least some of his bills from company funds. The whataboutism would also be rampant; Democrats would use the entire proceeding as an excuse to claim President Trump, his likely opponent is worse, and by the way, has four sets of indictments of his own, which are much more serious legal matters. Thus, any new revelations will be dismissed as too little evidence for too much turmoil, and we’re back to Republican overreach in a purely partisan war to take down a sitting President.
This doesn’t mean these questions are not important and do not need to be answered. Impeachment, however, does not strike me as the right path forward when there are other options such as effectively shutting down Congress. As I have previously suggested, Republicans should use their power creatively to force the Department of Justice to explain its conduct during the investigation. The prosecutor in the Hunter Biden case, David Weiss, now Special Counsel as of last Friday, was supposed to testify about conflicting statements regarding his authority and whistleblower accounts next month. At issue are whether he had the power to bring charges outside his jurisdiction and whether he was the final decision maker on whatever charges to bring. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Weiss himself insist that was the case, but whistleblowers allege he was rebuffed in both California and DC, meaning someone is not telling the full truth. After Mr. Weiss claimed this was all simply confusion, and that he could have brought these charges if he really wanted to, one of the whistleblower’s lawyers responded by noting “U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s story continues to change. As a practical matter, it makes no difference whether Weiss requested special counsel or special attorney authority. Under no circumstances should ‘the process’ have included the political appointees of the subject’s father, because Congress and the public had been assured it would not — but it did.” Otherwise, the overall treatment of the case – five years ending in a plea deal that was rejected by the judge – will also be a topic of lively discussion after Special Council Weiss himself allowed several tax charges to exceed the statute of limitations, failed to pursue viable lines of inquiry according to whistleblowers, and even allowed the potential defendant to be tipped off about an interview. There are also concerns about the treatment of the FBI’s memo detailing meetings with a confidential Ukrainian source who alleged that the President and his son accepted a $10 million bribe. This memo was not shared with the investigatory team, and no one has explained why. Of course, one also has to wonder how a US Attorney struck a plea deal that was practically laughed out of court and called unconstitutional. The US Attorney himself, now Special Counsel Weiss, needs to answer these questions, fully and completely, under oath, but this assumes he ends up testifying at all. Though the Department of Justice promised he would, “The Department is ready to offer U.S. Attorney Weiss to testify shortly after Congress returns from the August district work period,” read a letter sent by Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte to Republican Representative Jim Jordan, Republicans in general are convinced the Special Counsel appointment was designed to prevent him from testifying and they will make the ongoing investigation excuse.
This is not acceptable. The Department of Justice should be forced to immediately announce when the Special Counsel will be available and also make clear that he has the freedom to answer all questions. If this does not occur, Republicans should immediately use the power of the purse, procedural issues, and other techniques to block all congressional business. In my opinion, establishing improper conduct during the Hunter Biden investigation should be the number one priority. Representative James Comer can continue to investigate the businesses directly, but there is no clear path to breaking through to the public when Democrats can continue to insist the matter has already been fully investigated. If, on the other hand, the whistleblowers’ allegations can be established as true, the entire investigation becomes suspect, Congress can then step into that role in the interests of oversight, and opportunities arise to question the motivations and actions of the Attorney General, Special Counsel Weiss, and others. This approach also has the benefit of at least appearing to be willing to work with the Biden Administration to answer key questions rather than going nuclear with impeachment. The narrative is simple: No fair minded observer can simply ignore the allegations of multiple whisteblowers taken under oath, especially when a five year investigation appears to have ignored key evidence from confidential sources only to end with a defunct plea deal. Congress has a role to play in these matters and Republicans want to give the Administration a chance to provide the necessary transparency. If they do so willingly and fairly – after all, they claim to have nothing to hide – Republicans will follow regular order. If they do not, pressure will be increased. If the Administration continues to stonewall, impeachment remains an option, but in this case the potential threat of it is likely better than the actual inquiry.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 