Following the bipartisan vote of the House of Representatives to impeach President Donald Trump on Wednesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a freshman congresswoman who frequently peddles false conspiracy theories tied to the QAnon movement, said she would be issuing impeachment articles herself next week against incoming President-elect Joe Biden.
Greene made the announcement while appearing on Newsmax on Wednesday night, hours after the impeachment vote against Trump. She did not indicate a specific charge she would be seeking to impeach Biden over, other than a generic statement of “abuse of power.”
“We have to make sure our leaders are held accountable, we cannot have a president of the United States who is willing to abuse the power of the office of the presidency,” Greene said on the program, arguing without evidence that Biden had been “bought off” by foreign governments and companies, in Ukraine as well as in China.
Her charges are meritless — Biden could not have abused “the power of the office of the presidency” yet as he has not been sworn into that office, and won’t be until January 20.
The claims Greene made, that Biden had shady business dealings with foreign nations, echoes unsubstantiated attacks that Trump has frequently made against the incoming president.
Indeed, many on the right have baselessly alleged Biden inappropriately withheld billions of financial support to Ukraine for nefarious reasons. While he was serving as vice president in the Obama administration, Biden threatened Ukraine that the U.S. would withhold economic aid to the country in order to pressure leaders there to remove Viktor Shokin, that country’s top prosecutor, from his position.
Trump has claimed that Biden actually did so to benefit his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine, but in reality, Shokin was seen by many around the world as being soft on corruption, and his ouster was encouraged by several other nations that used similar tactics to pressure Kyiv to fire him.
Although Republicans in the Senate sought to investigate these claims, they found no evidence that Joe Biden acted in a corrupt way when dealing with the Ukraine government on that issue.
If Greene seeks to impeach Biden for these reasons, she will have a difficult time in the House getting anywhere — not only because the claims are nonsensical, but also because Democrats control the legislative chamber.
Greene also raised eyebrows this week for wearing a mask with the word “Censored” written on the front of it while delivering her remarks against impeaching Trump. Many mocked the freshman lawmaker for the mask choice, noting that she was not being censored in any way from expressing her viewpoints.
“The death of irony: Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene wears a mask that says ‘censored’ as she speaks into a microphone in the House Chamber on national television,” Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty tweeted.
“Leaders of this movement are defined by having great privilege while feigning martyrdom and one couldn’t sum it up with a more apt visual,” CNN’s Jake Tapper also said regarding Greene’s mask.
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