Biden officials facing impeachment threats this year.
Impeachment Threats on the Rise: Republicans Target Biden and Cabinet Members
Impeachment threats against public officials have been rising in recent years, with Republicans threatening to deploy the once-rare move against President Joe Biden and some of his administration’s top Cabinet members.
This year, there’s been a growing rift in the party between conservative Republicans and moderate GOP members who might have won in Biden districts, adding pressure going into 2024 elections, where the House is hanging onto a slim red majority.
How the Impeachment Process Works
Impeachment proceedings are initiated by any member of the House of Representatives, and once brought up, the House Judiciary Committee typically conducts an impeachment inquiry. There’s a floor vote on whether or not to open the inquiries, but it’s important to note the inquiry is not constitutionally required. The House is however required to vote on each article of impeachment, and a majority vote of the entire House is required to pass each article. The Senate will then hold an impeachment trial and a two-thirds vote is required to convict on any article of impeachment. If convicted, the official is removed and barred from holding office.
The House has initiated impeachment proceedings over 60 times, but only in one instance has skipped the Judiciary Committee’s inquiry. Daniel Freeman, a professor at American University, handled four impeachments and saw several resolutions during his time on the Hill. He detailed how former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the first of its kind.
“There have been some instances where somebody has sought to take up a question of privilege, which is, an impeachment resolution is a question of high privilege, directly onto the floor without any committee action. And the only time that’s been done is on the second Trump impeachment,” Freeman told the Washington Examiner. Freeman served over three decades as counsel and parliamentarian to the House Judiciary and International Relations Committees.
Trump was acquitted on all counts by the Senate in both his impeachment cases in 2019 and 2021.
“Things have changed dramatically, what we used to call the norms of government — there’s no more norms of government,” Freeman continued. “Former President Trump has kind of changed all of the rules about what’s expected of people and what they’re supposed to do.”
President Joe Biden
Republicans have been floating the possibility of impeaching Biden since soon after he took office in 2021, filing over a dozen separate impeachment resolutions against the president.
As of September, there was a total of six separate impeachment resolutions pending.
Perhaps one of the most vocal House members to urge Biden’s impeachment has been Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who, in May, introduced the first impeachment resolution since Republicans gained control of the House. Greene’s resolution related to the sitting president’s handling of border security. The same day, Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) introduced articles of impeachment against Biden for similar reasons.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) submitted articles of impeachment accusing Biden of “high crimes and misdemeanors” related to allegations of misconduct between Biden’s family members and foreign businesses. Republicans are in the midst of investigating Biden family members and the president’s son, Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) introduced impeachment articles against Biden in June for his handling of immigration at the Southern border. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) negotiated with Boebert to send the articles to the Judiciary Committee and its Homeland Security Committee for review, but no vote has been taken by the full House on impeachment. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) referred Boebert’s articles of impeachment to the House committees.
McCarthy reportedly wants to start the process of an impeachment inquiry by the end of September, with talks of the House skipping the Judiciary Committee approval steps. However, even by skipping a floor vote on the injury, the House could still lack the 218 votes to move the impeachment to the Senate.
Vice President Kamala Harris
At the same time Ogles introduced articles of impeachment against Biden in June, he filed to impeach Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her incompetent and blaming her for allowing “the land invasion at our southern border to continue unchecked.”
Defense Secretary
Last week, Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) pushed to impeach Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Biden-nominated 28th secretary of defense has been facing impeachment threats after the withdrawal in 2021, with Mills stating he drafted articles on impeachment in March during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.
The resolution blames Austin’s actions for the “unnecessary deaths” of Americans during the withdrawal, in which 13 U.S. service members were killed in a suicide bombing at the Abbey Gate outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
Republican members have a long-anticipated goal to launch an impeachment inquiry into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over southern border policies. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) filed one of the impeachment resolutions into Mayorkas at the beginning of this year, picking up dozens of GOP cosponsors. In June, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) introduced articles of impeachment, further accusing Mayorkas of mismanaging the U.S.-Mexico border crisis.
House Homeland Security Committee Republicans released a 112-page report in July accusing Mayorkas of failure to discharge the duties of his office and misleading Congress and the American people on the border crisis, leading to high immigration levels.
Attorney General Merrick Garland
Greene introduced articles of impeachment against Attorney General Merrick Garland in May, accusing the top prosecutor of weaponizing the justice system. Greene’s pending resolution says the “politicization of the DOJ has resulted in the persecution of the left’s political enemies and a two-tiered justice system.”
She cited different instances under Garland’s tenure as justification for impeachment, including going after Trump for political reasons. Greene filed articles of impeachment against Garland in 2022 after the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
FBI Director Christopher Wray
FBI Director Christopher Wray was another target of Greene in May, when she introduced articles and picked up multiple GOP co-sponsors. Republicans have accused Wray of having political bias for Hunter Biden in the agency’s investigation of the president’s son and bias against Trump in a separate criminal probe.
The House Oversight Committee made threats against Wray to hold him in contempt of Congress earlier this year for refusing to hand over documents that allegedly contain information about Biden’s business deals and proof of bribery.
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