WASHINGTON—Bowing to the radical right Trumpites of the so-called Freedom Caucus and the corrupt corporate class who backs them—House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., commissioned three House committees to open a joint impeachment inquiry against Democratic President Joe Biden.
McCarthy, with no evidence whatsoever, claimed GOP probers have uncovered “serious and credible allegations against” Biden. Together, they “paint a picture of a culture of corruption,” he asserted. McCarthy also charged Biden with abuse of power and obstruction of justice.
It’s more than just a move to saddle Biden with an impeachment process that makes it look like Trump and Biden are just two of the “many politicians who are all corrupt,” therefore diminishing the seriousness, in the eyes of the public, of the multiple Trump indictments.
Impeaching the president even though there is no evidence of wrong-doing and certainly no evidence that he has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” called for in any impeachment process against a sitting president is a signal about how they intend to trash the constitution if ever any of the Republican primary candidates enter the White House after the 2024 elections.
They are, with the phony impeachment inquiry, engaging in a continuing attack on democracy reflected so dramatically in the events of January 2021 when fascist mobs overran the U.S. Capitol. They insult the American people with senseless demands for the impeachment of Biden rather than address any of the real issues facing people in the country.
When McCarthy attempted to justify the latest GOP attack on democracy he was unable to give any details about anything that Biden has done wrong. He mentioned some allegations against Biden’s son, Hunter and he speculated about completely unproven conversations between the president and his son.
Republican-appointed prosecutors have been investigating Hunter Biden for years and have yet not released any evidence of any wrong-doing by him. One claim is that Hunter purchased guns, not illegally, but in defiance of promises not to do so. That will be difficult for Republicans to hang their hat on given how they openly back the selling of guns to any and all who want to buy them, regardless of age or any other circumstances.
Unproven charges that Hunter made money as a result of his father’s position as Vice President pales by comparison with the billions of dollars that Saudi Arabia paid to Trump’s son-in-law in exchange for shifts in U.S. policy in favor of Saudi Arabia. Of course, things allegedly done by his son before he was even president are not impeachable offenses for the president now.
McCarthy acted at the behest of the right-wing crazies who control his political future in Congress. They are the handmaidens of the corrupt capitalist class. That class of the Kochs, the Waltons, Jeff Bezos, and their ilk, is perfectly happy to use “dark money,” voter suppression, and other influence via its political puppets to neuter Biden, his policies, and his allies.
They hope that by deleting or neutering Biden and his allies they can delete women’s rights, constitutional rights, workers’ rights, rights of people of color, funds to combat global warming, increases in aid to public rather than private and segregated schools, and anything and anyone else the plutocrats despise on their way to total control via their—and the rightists—deity, Donald Trump,
All that led McCarthy to allege without evidence that Biden “lied to the American people about his knowledge of his family’s foreign business dealings.”
Again, McCarthy provided no details. He’ll leave them to the chairs of the House Ways and Means, Oversight, and Judiciary Committees. Rabid Trumpites and Freedom Caucus members James Comer of Texas and Jim Justice of Ohio chair the latter two panels.
McCarthy acted under extreme pressure from an overwhelming majority of the House Freedom Caucus, a band of dozens of Trump-crazed right-wingers. They demanded the impeachment investigation as part of their political price for keeping McCarthy in the Speaker’s chair, which he holds at their sufferance.
Would force McCarthy on more issues
The other parts of their price would force McCarthy, the Democratic-run Senate, and Biden to kowtow to their further diktats for trashing domestic spending—such as zeroing out funds for OSHA and no money to combat climate change–in upcoming money bills, including a temporary measure to keep the government going beyond the end of this fiscal year on Sept. 30. They want billions to finish building Trump’s racist Mexican wall, too.
Even then, one of the most devoted and loudest Trumpites, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said just opening an impeachment investigation is not enough. Unless McCarthy strong-arms the House GOP into actually impeaching Biden—sending the case to the Senate—Gaetz said he would file a motion “to vacate the chair.” In plain English, oust McCarthy.
Impeaching Biden may be easier said than done. Four of the 222 House Republicans told various news services that even an impeachment investigation, much less an impeachment, is ridiculous. That includes one Freedom Caucus dissenter, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo.
If all four stick to their stands, joined by the 212 Democrats, the impeachers would win by 218-216, unless another Republican switches. A tie defeats impeachment.
The White House, which assembled a “war room” of its own lawyers, investigators, and communicators following the House Republicans’ takeover in last year’s election reacted. They had anticipated tons of investigations and the impeachment demand.
“Opening impeachment despite zero evidence of wrongdoing by POTUS is simply red meat for the extreme rightwing so they can keep baselessly attacking him,” Ian Sams, White House communicator for the war room, tweeted.
Among the dubious Republicans—Buck, Reps. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, Mike Lawler of New York, and Don Bacon of Nebraska—the Coloradan’s opposition stood out due to an irony from the first Trump impeachment. This time, Buck called impeachment “absurd.”
And Bacon said impeachment “should be based on evidence of a crime that points directly to President Biden, or if the president doesn’t cooperate by not providing documents,” he added. “There’s clearly corruption with Hunter using his dad’s name to earn tens of millions of dollars. But impeachment needs to be about the dad, not the son.”
Buck agreed, overlooking the irony of the first time he was confronted with evidence of presidential criminality.
“The time for impeachment is the time when there’s evidence linking President Biden–if there’s evidence linking President Biden to a high crime or misdemeanor. That doesn’t exist right now,” Buck told MSNBC. “It’s based on the facts. You go where the facts take you.”
The irony came during the first Trump impeachment, in the endless hours of testimony by Special Counsel Robert Mueller over Trump’s attempts to blackmail the Ukrainians into digging up dirt on Joe Biden in return for U.S. military aid.
Buck asked Mueller then if, absent a Justice Department legal memo barring indicting a sitting president for a criminal offense, he would have indicted Trump for obstruction of justice for trying to cover the Ukraine deal up.
Mueller’s one-word answer to Buck was “yes.”
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