Regular business may have only just begun in the Republican-controlled House, but the first impeachment articles have already been filed against a member of the Biden administration.
Yet several Republicans are advising the House GOP not to start impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden and his administration officials over apparent policy differences instead of accusations of wrongdoing.
BIDEN GIRDS FOR CONGRESSIONAL GRIDLOCK AS GOP TAKES OVER HOUSE
On the same day Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) amplified her call to impeach Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) filed articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, claiming he has undermined “operational control” of the southern border and encouraged illegal immigration.
Despite the Democratic Senate majority, Biden administration policy- and personality-driven impeachments are a Republican “overreaction,” according to former Georgia GOP Rep. Bob Barr, one of ex-President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment managers.
“The process of impeachment has been basically devalued in recent years since the Clinton impeachment, which was for, in my view, very specific violations of criminal law by a sitting president, into a political tool to simply go after a president and now others for policy disagreements,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Barr recommended that the House Oversight Committee, among other Republican panels, investigate “the systemic abuse by government of citizens’ individual liberty.”
“When you have only two years and you want to grab a bunch of headlines and you want to weaken your political opponents, it’s a lot easier to do what they’re now talking about,” he said. “Impeachment is easy. Going after and solving the systemic problems with the federal government and particularly our law enforcement agencies is a lot more difficult.”
Barr’s comments echo those from former Arkansas GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, who agreed impeachment proceedings should be based on wrongdoing, not policy.
“Whenever there’s failed policy, let’s investigate and have hearings on that and try to change that policy,” he told Axios this week. “That, to me, should be the approach of the Republican Congress.”
Paul Henderson, chief of administration and a prosecutor for Vice President Kamala Harris when she was San Francisco’s district attorney, did concede the Democrats’ impeachments of former President Donald Trump have “absolutely influenced that process.”
“However, rather than lower the bar, as implied by your question, I think the bar to challenge a president has been raised,” he said. “[On] the basis of ongoing prosecutions at local state and federal levels, history will likely affirm the impeachment allegations as a confirmation of the process more than it will reflect a political agenda from the Democratic Party.”
Rutgers University history, journalism, and media studies professor David Greenberg, a critic of the Clinton impeachment, also disagreed with Barr over the Trump impeachments, contending those Democratic-led proceedings had “a very legitimate basis.”
“That in no way justifies using impeachment as a weapon of political harassment,” he said. “Republicans have every right to hold investigative hearings to ask questions about Biden’s immigration policies and decision-making. That’s oversight. But ratcheting it up into impeachment talk is just partisan warfare.”
Greene used Biden’s weekend trip to El Paso, Texas, his first time personally surveying immigration issues at the border as president before traveling to Mexico for the 10th North American Leaders’ Summit, to clamor for his and Mayorkas’s impeachment. Greene previously filed impeachment articles against Biden in the 117th Congress for his role in Trump’s 2019 Ukraine-centric impeachment, his 2021 Afghanistan War withdrawal, his son Hunter‘s foreign business dealings, and his COVID-19 eviction moratorium. Trump’s second impeachment in 2021 was over the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
“Joe Biden has failed the American People and Border Patrol Agents,” Greene wrote on social media on the first day of the 118th Congress. “The border is the most dangerous crisis in America and fentanyl is killing Americans everyday. Impeach Joe Biden and Secretary Mayorkas!”
Even House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) mentioned the possibility of Mayorkas’s impeachment last year before he was reaffirmed as leader after 15 rounds of voting last weekend. But Mayorkas, at least publicly, seems undeterred, downplaying the likelihood of impeachment and adamant that he will not resign.
“I’ve got a lot of work to do,” Mayorkas told ABC’s This Week last weekend. “I’m proud to do it, alongside 250,000 incredibly dedicated and talented individuals in the Department of Homeland Security, and I’m going to continue to do my work.”
House Republicans are prepared to investigate the Afghanistan withdrawal, Hunter Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland‘s management of the Justice Department, and Dr. Anthony Fauci‘s handling of the pandemic. Although many members of the GOP are embracing the investigations, others have implored lawmakers to remain mindful of their underperformance in the 2022 midterm elections
Separately, Joe Biden is now under scrutiny after roughly 10 classified documents concerning Iran, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom from the Obama administration, including some “sensitive compartmented information,” were found at his think tank’s Washington, D.C., office last year. The president’s attorneys confirmed the discovery this week after notifying the White House, the National Archives, and Garland last November.
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House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has alluded to hearings on the Biden documents. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) has similarly requested a “Gang of Eight” briefing on them, as well as the classified materials recovered from Trump’s Florida home and office.
