Joe Biden is an incompetent fool suffering from dementia who has to be propped up by his staff in order to make any appearances in public. His actions in office have brought the United States closer to nuclear war than at any time since the 1980s. His stewardship of the economy has bordered on criminal stupidity. And his management of the pandemic violated the Constitution, his oath of office, and common sense.
Unfortunately for America, none of that is realistically impeachable. Perhaps it should be. But unlike Great Britain, we don’t have a “no confidence” vote that would force a president to resign and run for office again.
On the other hand, Biden’s actions in his personal life are a more promising avenue to achieve the goal of impeachment. There is testimony that Biden took bribes, and there is ample testimony that he lied — repeatedly — to the American people about his knowledge of his son Hunter’s business dealings.
Unfortunately, the evidence connecting Hunter’s wrongdoing with his father is based on hearsay and some telephone transcripts that may or may not show Joe Biden’s direct participation in illegal schemes. Biden’s name is used by Hunter, but there’s no proof that the elder Biden had any direct knowledge of any criminal activity.
In other words, the legal case for impeachment is weak to non-existent.
Related: Impeachment Inquiry Into Joe Biden May Be Imminent
Republicans in the House are beginning a dead-end quest to impeach a president who will never be kicked out of office. There would need to be 17 Senate Democrats to cross the aisle to convict Joe Biden of high crimes and misdemeanors. And without any kind of “smoking gun” that Biden took a bribe or a cut from Hunter’s illicit business ventures, Democrats can safely refuse to vote to convict Biden of anything.
One House Republican pointed this reality out to his colleagues and promptly had his head bitten off.
Yet one of Buck’s biggest offenses on the right has been his vocal opposition to launching an impeachment inquiry. Buck, who is a member of the ultra conservative House Freedom Caucus, has said he doesn’t believe the House has produced any evidence that Biden profited off his son’s foreign business deals and cast doubt on whether the evidence even exists – particularly significant since he a senior member on the committee that would help oversee an official impeachment inquiry. The Judiciary Committee has also been one of the key panels involved in investigations into the Biden family.
Buck, however, has maintained he is open to impeachment if he sees evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. And leadership is working to convince him of that: Buck will receive a briefing from House Oversight Committee staff this week on where their Biden investigations stand, according to a source familiar – a briefing that was arranged by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
“I’m receiving a briefing about the evidence Oversight Committee has developed concerning Hunter Biden’s activities and Vice President Biden’s culpability concerning his son’s alleged crimes,” Buck confirmed in a statement to CNN.
“High crimes and misdemeanors” is a vague legal standard — made deliberately so by the founders. But even if the standard of proof isn’t quite what you’d find in a court of law, there is a minimum bar that needs to be met to convince Senators to convict. And Buck is quite right to point out that the standard that would lead to Biden’s conviction and removal from office hasn’t been met.
Because there’s no chance of conviction, the impeachment inquiry becomes a political exercise — much like both Trump impeachments that had no chance in hell of resulting in Trump being kicked out of office.
Trump’s impeachments were initiated to embarrass the president and damage his reputation in the eyes of the public. The Biden impeachment would be carried out for similar reasons. Impeachment now and when Trump was in office are a gigantic waste of time given the huge number of issues that Congress needs to address in the name of the American people.
