2023-07-27 21:30:38
Donald Trump wants to see President Joe Biden impeached, and the former president’s allies in Congress and his GOP rivals for the 2024 presidential election are eager to join that fight as Trump’s own legal woes mount.
Trump’s main opponent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, said this week that House Republicans “they are absolutely within their rights” to evaluate an impeachment inquiry against Biden.
Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, also a presidential candidate, said Republicans would have “justification to do so.” And Trump-aligned House GOP leaders herald what’s to come.
“Republicans in the House of Representatives They will leave no stone unturned”said Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the fourth House Republican Party leader and a top Trump ally, who is sometimes mentioned as a possible vice-presidential candidate.
Hunter Biden, investigated for his business. AP Photo
This week, the possibility of impeaching Biden for the business of his son, Hunter Biden, it rose from the most extreme right-wing corners of the Republican Party to reach the mainstream in it.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced on Fox News that the House may launch an impeachment inquiry against Biden and elaborated on his plans at a press event on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Behind closed doors on Wednesday, however, the Republican Speaker of the House told his GOP colleagues that the impeachment process is still in its early days, and McCarthy acknowledged that Much is still unknown about Joe Biden and whether he had knowledge of or was involved in his son’s business dealings, which could give rise to an indictable offence.
“The speaker of the House went over what we know and what we don’t know,” said Tom Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, a seasoned legislator and committee chair.
the offensive
“There are many things we don’t knows – we don’t know if any of the money went directly to President Biden or not,” Cole said, explaining the message to House Republicans. “That’s what the investigations are for.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ge., said McCarthy also told them that if an impeachment inquiry comes to Biden, he’s going to ask that they “be with me on this.”
Greene, a Trump ally who backs the impeachment, said that no one stood up during the private meeting to object.
By putting Biden on notice that the House is considering an investigation, Republicans are turning a previously rare congressional check on the executive branch — formal felony and misdemeanor impeachment charges — in another tool that is wielded in party politics.
It is a political escalation, promoted by Trump, after his two impeachment trials. The prospect of an investigation into Biden’s impeachment also comes as Trump faces mounting court cases, including a possible federal prosecution in the probe led by special counsel Jack Smith. about his efforts to annul the election in the lead up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
The President of the United States, Joe Biden. Photo EFE
Trump is the only president in US history to has been impeached twice: first in 2019 over a phone call urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on the Bidens or risk losing US military aid, and again in 2021 following the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on Capitol Hill by Trump supporters who were trying to overturn Biden’s election.
Now as the GOP frontrunner to run against Biden in 2024, Trump has long been furious over the impeachment proceedings launched against him by House Democrats. McCarthy has suggested that Trump’s impeachments could be removed, as Stefanik and Greene propose. But Trump wants Biden to face similar charges.
“I’m being sued for a ‘perfect’ phone call, not Biden,” Trump posted online in all caps this week, calling the current president “corrupt.”
Last week, at a Fox News public hearing in Iowa, Trump voiced similar grievances, asking, “Why hasn’t Biden been impeached? … Why isn’t he impeached?” Republican representatives on various committees are investigating the Bidens and suggest the president may have been aware of or involved in his son Hunter Biden’s work, particularly when the younger Biden served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. .
Congressional Republicans highlight the testimony of two Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblowers who testified last week that the Justice Department halted its investigation into the Bidens, a claim the agency rejects. The Republicans also released information the FBI says is unverified from a confidential informant who alleges Burisma payments to Bidens as bribesalthough other documents show that a senior company official denies any payments were made.
Problems
Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax evasion stemming from a federal investigation, but the deal fell through Wednesday when a judge raised questions about it.
“I’ve seen enough. We need a special prosecutor who has jurisdiction over any and all Biden family investigations,” Chris Christie, another Trump rival in the 2024 election, said on social media.
The White House has declined to answer specific questions about any impeachment inquiry by House Republicans against Biden.
“They can do whatever they want, but we are not going to lose focus”, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this week, referring to the “real priorities that American families care about.”
Biden himself has repeatedly said that he does not talk to his son about his business dealings abroad.
As Hunter Biden appeared in court on Wednesday, the press secretary issued a statement: “As we’ve said, the President, the First Lady, they love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life.
Not all Republicans agree with the House’s plans to consider an impeachment inquiry, but those who oppose it could face political retaliation from Trump.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that he understands that House Republicans may have incentives to launch an impeachment inquiry after Trump was impeached twice when Democrats were in control of the camera.
But the Kentucky Republican he discouraged other Republicans from continuing down that path.
“Impeachment should be rarer than common,” said McConnell, who has long endured Trump’s wrath and has not spoken to him since the month before the attack on Capitol Hill. “I think that it is not good for the country that the impeachments are repeated.”
Trump this week took aim at other Republican senators, including John Cornyn of Texas and Mitt Romney of Utah, who had expressed reluctance to launch impeachment proceedings.
House Democrats have declared that the attempt to impeach Biden it’s political extremism and they gave to understand that they will oppose him.
“I am well aware of how important it is to study the facts and evidence before reaching any conclusion, and the Republicans are doing the opposite,” said Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., one of the lead prosecutors in the first trial. House politician against Trump in 2019.
“What they are talking about now is pure political revenge that is not based on facts and evidence,” he said, adding that this is “abusing the removal powers of Congress.”
PA Agency
PB
look also
#Donald #Trump #impeach #Joe #Biden #Republicans #rule #plan