Kevin McCarthy announced this week that the House of Representatives would seek to impeach President Joe Biden, a blatant, baseless political attack designed to hurt President Biden and help Donald Trump. Despite MAGA Republicans’ attempts to build a case against President Biden, six months of evidence have shown not a single shred of evidence of wrongdoing by the President. And Americans have rejected the call to impeach the President – they want Congress to focus on addressing issues that actually matter.
McCarthy’s desperation to wield any sort of power is clear to some conservatives. A few have decried his recent push to impeach as a “shiny object” set to distract from the Republican on Republican fight over appropriations, an impeachment without any evidence or proof of impeachable offenses from President Biden.
Even Conservative Media Is Skeptical
- Fox News Host Steve Doocy: “Here’s The Problem!” “We- we’ve seen this movie a couple of times before. First step. Impeachment inquiry. Almost always it leads to an impeachment. I’ve heard from members of Congress on the Republican side, they are going to, they’re going to do the I-word of Joe Biden. That guy right there. Didn’t look too happy in that picture. And they’re going to use the 1023 form as the basis for everything. Here’s the problem! […] it’s completely unverified. And in fact, there are certain critical parts of the story that have been refuted by the people in the story! So- so it’s problematic. But and so that’s why Kevin McCarthy says we need other stuff, more documents.” [Fox News, ‘Fox & Friends’, 7/26/23, VIDEO]
McCarthy Backpedaled On Impeaching President Biden
- 7/26: McCarthy Admitted to GOP Members That They Have Not Found Evidence Rising To The Level Of Impeachment Against President Biden. “A conservative GOP member also tells me McCarthy was ‘very clear’ in conference that they’d do ‘impeachment inquiry if they find what he needs for it. It has not yet been identified yet to that level — lots of evidence, not to that level.’” [Tweet, 7/26/23]
- 7/25: McCarthy Softened His Tone On Impeaching President Biden. “Our investigations are revealing more info every day about the Biden family’s shell companies and the sweetheart deal from the DOJ. The American public has a right to the truth. If evidence continues to rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry, House Republicans will act.” [Twitter, 7/25/23]
- 7/24: McCarthy Floated The Idea of Impeaching President Biden Saying GOP Investigations Are “Rising To The Level Of Impeachment Inquiry” – Despite Republicans Still Not Finding Any Evidence of Wrongdoing. “This is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed. I believe we will follow this all the way to the end, and this is going to rise to an impeachment inquiry the way the Constitution tells us to do this.” [Fox News, 7/24/23, VIDEO]
CNN: Inside McCarthy’s Sudden Warming To A Biden Impeachment Inquiry. “Speaker Kevin McCarthy in recent weeks has heard similar advice from both a senior House Republican and an influential conservative lawyer: prioritize the impeachment of President Joe Biden over a member of his Cabinet. Part of the thinking, according to multiple sources familiar with the internal discussions, is that if House Republicans are going to expend precious resources on the politically tricky task of an impeachment, they might as well go after their highest target as opposed to the attorney general or secretary of homeland security.” [CNN, 7/25/23]
Top Congressional Republicans Have Not Lined Up Behind McCarthy
- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reportedly said an impeachment inquiry into President Biden would “not be good for the country” but he “can understand” why House Republicans are open to it, “after the way they’ve been treated.” [Twitter, 7/26/23]
- Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA): “No one should be impeached, certainly not a president, unless there is substantial evidence that the president has committed a high crime or misdemeanor. I’m not going to support — and I’m not suggesting this is what Kevin has suggested — but I’m not gonna support impeaching somebody just because I don’t like their politics.” [Fox News, 7/26/23]
- Sen. John Thune (R-SD): “I’ll say what I said before, and that is I think the best way to change the presidency is win the election… I think it’s in our best interest to be making an argument for why we need to have the majority in the House, the Senate and the White House come Jan. 2025.” [Fox News, 7/26/23]
- Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO): “I don’t think it’s responsible for us to talk about impeachment.” [CNN, 7/26/23, VIDEO]
House Republicans Can’t Seem To Find A Coherent Reason To Impeach President Biden
HuffPost: ‘Clown Carousel’: White House Roasts GOP For ‘Bizarre’ Impeachment Probe. “The White House blasted congressional Republicans on Wednesday for what it characterized as clumsy and unfocused attacks against President Joe Biden as Republicans, led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), escalated talks of impeachment against the president. The White House memo, obtained exclusively by HuffPost, comes a day after McCarthy signaled a renewed desire to go after Biden for alleged corruption, despite the lack of evidence pointing to specific wrongdoing. McCarthy told reporters Tuesday that a formal impeachment probe is necessary to unearth the evidence to make their case, giving Democrats an opening to argue that Republicans are simply throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks.” [HuffPost, 7/26/23]
The Guardian (Opinion): A Strong Whiff Of Desperation Surrounds Threats To Impeach Biden. “Unhampered by the lack of evidence of presidential malfeasance, McCarthy took the leap that the Republican party’s right wing has long been craving. […] Such good news for Trump’s biggest political adversary is unacceptable. Thus, the desperate measure. The ‘impeach Biden’ movement should be seen for what it is: a maneuver to distract from Trump’s own legal troubles, as investigations mount over election meddling, misuse of classified documents and his role in fomenting the January 6 insurrection. It’s also an effort to confuse those Americans who have trouble sorting fact from fiction. ‘If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer,’ the great social critic, Hannah Arendt, warned in the 1950s. ‘And with such a people,’ she added ominously, ‘you can then do what you please.’ That’s what is scary about McCarthy’s move this week. The Republican effort to impeach Biden is desperate and misguided – but that doesn’t mean it won’t be politically effective.” [The Guardian, 7/26/23]
The Messenger: Biden? Mayorkas? Garland? GOP Weighs Who to Impeach. “House Republicans devising a gambit to impeach President Joe Biden or a few of his top administration officials are divided — not over whether, but who — to target first. Intent on retaining power and winning the White House next year, the House GOP majority has expended much energy drilling the Biden administration on a myriad of hot-button political issues. They’ve trained particular focus of their oversight and investigations on the president’s family, the southern border and federal law enforcement. Republicans want to cast an impeachment net far and wide, but they lack consensus on who to reel in first.” [The Messenger, 7/23/23]
Raw Story: James Comer Suggests GOP Is Targeting Biden As Retaliation For Trump Impeachments. “Rep. James Comer (R-KY) has been leading the way on the House Oversight Committee that’s investigating Hunter Biden – and promising to hold two impeachment votes on cabinet appointees of Biden’s before the Aug. recess, he told reporters Thursday. ‘We’ve got a lot of members that want to impeach,’ Comer told Raw Story. ‘And we’ve got some members that would probably not go that route for the simple reason that they don’t think that the Senate is going to do anything. And, you know, it gobbles up valuable floor time. ‘But, look, [Speaker Kevin] McCarthy is gonna make that call. I think you see in recent days he’s taken steps to move forward with impeachment on both [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas and [Attorney General] Merrick Garland. I think they’re waiting to see what more evidence we come up with in the Oversight Committee for Biden.’ Raw Story went on to ask Comer if Washington is now going to be nothing but non-stop impeachments against an opposing party. ‘Well, you know, if it is, it’s because the Democrats impeached Donald Trump twice,’ complained Comer, indicating that the impeachments are about retaliation.” [Raw Story, 7/20/23]