Sen. Joni Ernst argued her warning that Republicans could “immediately” push to impeach Joe Biden if he’s elected president was taken out of context.
Ernst, 49, said Monday she was trying to make the point that Democrats have made impeachment the new normal.
“That was taken entirely out of context. The point is that the Democrats have lowered the bar so far that … regardless of who it is, if you have a different party in the House than that of an elected president, you can have just random comments thrown out there with folks saying we’re going to impeach,” the Iowa Republican told the Hill.
“So, no, it was taken out of context. I didn’t say what the headlines [said] but simply that we‘ve lowered the bar so much, is this really what the American people want? And I would say no, it’s not,” she said.
On Sunday, Ernst warned that Biden, 77, “should be very careful what he’s asking for.”
“We can have a situation where if it should ever be President Biden, that immediately, people, right the day after he would be elected, would be saying, ‘Well, we’re going to impeach him,’” she said.
[Related: Joe Biden: Joni Ernst impeachment warning shows Republicans ‘don’t want to face me’]
The grounds for Biden’s potential impeachment, she said, would be “for being assigned to take on Ukrainian corruption yet turning a blind eye to Burisma because his son was on the board making over a million dollars a year.”
Biden’s son Hunter, 49, was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company while his father was leading the Obama administration’s push to remove top Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin from office. Shokin was removed from his position in 2016 amid international pressure but has since alleged he was ousted because he was investigating the company for which the younger Biden worked.
