Republicans are planning to launch a number of calls for President Joe Biden’s impeachment if they win control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm races.
According to reporting from The Hill, “a number of rank-and-file conservatives” in the House have already introduced resolutions to impeach the president. As long as Democrats maintain control of the House, these measures have no chance of passing — but the resolutions are a glimpse of what may lay ahead if the GOP takes over the House after the midterm elections this fall.
Rep. Bob Good, a Republican from Virginia, has said that Congress has a duty to act “on day one.”
“I have consistently said President Biden should be impeached for intentionally opening our border and making Americans less safe,” he said to The Hill.
Republicans have long decried Biden’s so-called “open border” policies, and earlier this year condemned his administration for providing baby formula to infants at the border in the midst of a nationwide formula shortage. In reality, however, the Biden administration has enthusiastically embraced the inhumane policies of the Trump era; in the first few months of his administration, Biden actually outpaced Trump in his use of Title 42, a cruel anti-immigration policy used to expel asylum seekers at the border.
Other efforts to impeach Biden will likely involve characterizing his management of the coronavirus pandemic and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan as “high crimes,” The Hill reported. Indeed, the GOP has already brought forth at least eight impeachment resolutions against Biden — three on Afghanistan, three on immigration, one relating to the eviction moratorium during the pandemic, and one relating to his son’s business dealings.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) introduced impeachment articles in the first week that Biden was in office, claiming without evidence that Biden was involved in his son’s dealings in Ukraine. Notably, Greene announced her impeachment articles as Congress was impeaching Trump for inciting his loyalists who attacked the U.S. Capitol building.
Greene will likely continue using impeachment as a political tactic, as she has also recently introduced articles against Attorney General Merrick Garland over his approval of a search warrant that was executed at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property.
In its original context, the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” in the section on impeachment in the Constitution didn’t refer to literal crimes, but rather, executive branch abuses.
Although Congress has the power to interpret the phrase however it wants, impeachment efforts have traditionally been restrained, with lawmakers only attempting impeachment in response to extreme violations of executive powers.
Many of the same Republicans who are planning to impeach Biden defended Trump against his impeachments by claiming that he had committed no literal “high crimes.” Now, it appears those lawmakers are ready to abandon that requirement.
Even if Republicans assume control of the House, it’s unlikely that their impeachment efforts will result in Biden’s removal from the presidency. For an impeachment to be successful, it requires two-thirds of the Senate (67 senators total) to vote in favor of indictment — a roadblock that Democrats encountered in their two impeachments of Trump.
Although it’s likely that the Senate will remain close to evenly divided after the midterms, it’s possible that Republicans will use the impeachment process for political purposes, in part as a response to the Trump impeachments.
Currently, the electorate is divided almost evenly in who it wants to run the House after this year’s midterm races. According to an aggregate of polling data from RealClearPolitics, the GOP has a 0.8 percent advantage over Democrats in an average of polls — a lead that is well within the margin of error, meaning the race for the House is currently tied.
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