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Those who have been paying attention know that the House GOP’s “impeachment inquiry” has never been more than political theater designed to weaken President Joe Biden. As a reminder for everybody else that this is the case, Republicans released their report on this “investigation” on the day when Biden is to address his party at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago… while the House is in recess.
If you need more evidence of how much of a sham this was, take a look at what Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, had to say about it.
“The evidence produced by our impeachment inquiry is the strongest case for impeachment of a sitting president the House of Representatives has ever investigated,” he said.
Comer, of course, is the guy who appeared on Fox News more often than some of the network’s anchors… usually with some breathless yet unsubstantiated allegation about the “Biden crime family.”
Now, it would be fair to ask: “If your case is so strong, surely you guys will actually impeach Biden, right?”
Well, not so fast.
Nobody is going to impeach anybody because, even though they hold the majority in the House, Republicans don’t have the votes (or the will) to carry this sham to term.
This was demonstrated impressively by Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who offered during one of Comer’s hearings to bring a motion to impeach Biden earlier this year. However, there were no Republican takers… because the “investigation” and the accusations were the point.
And they probably would have had the desired effect if the president had stayed in the race: First, by allowing Republicans to insinuate through baseless accusations that the president was corrupt, and by watering down the significance of impeachments in general.
After all, their candidate is the only president to have been impeached twice (and to have received a “guilty” vote from a member of his own party during the subsequent Senate impeachment trial).
In Trump’s case, there actually was plenty of evidence (including the statements of witnesses with firsthand knowledge) that he withheld aid to Ukraine to pressure President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to produce some dirt on Biden.
And, of course, the entire world witnessed Trump’s second impeachable offense when he incited an insurrection on January 6.
Tough to see how Comer would think that his trumped-up accusations amount to more evidence than either of these cases (or the impeachment of Bill Clinton, for that matter).
A lack of providing any proof of wrongdoing on the part of the president isn’t the only reason why there won’t be an impeachment vote.
First of all, Biden is no longer running for reelection, so what would be the point?
And, just as importantly, a Senate trial would backfire on the GOP because not even all Republican senators would have voted to impeach.
Several of them have said that they had not seen any (or enough) evidence supporting an impeachment.
Therefore, even if House Republicans had the votes, which they don’t, or the will to actually impeach Biden, which they also don’t, they still would have faced embarrassment in the Senate.
Therefore, it can only be said that the best thing to come out of today’s announcement is that now we can all be done with this nonsense.
