Dem
51
GOP
49
House Republicans desperately want to impeach Joe Biden. They think, almost certainly wrongly, that it will work to their benefit during the 2024 election cycle. They also think, almost certainly rightly, that it will please The Dear Leader. They are only missing one small thing: a high crime and/or misdemeanor committed by Biden.
Yesterday, Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter to White House Counsel Edward Siskel in which they revealed their current line of attack. Their theory goes like this:
The Representatives have demanded documents from the White House related to the alleged conspiracy. We haven't the faintest idea what those documents might possibly be, and we suspect the White House doesn't, either. Assuming there is a failure by the administration to produce (likely nonexistent) "evidence," that will undoubtedly be spun as further evidence of obstruction and a conspiracy.
In any event, this seems to us like grasping at straws. Most obviously, if simply knowing that Hunter wasn't going to show up is some sort of crime or misdemeanor, then boy are there a lot of guilty people out there. Heck, we knew he wasn't going to show up, since closed-door testimony is so obviously a trap. So, are we going to be impeached, too? For the President to be guilty of something, then simply knowing vaguely about Hunter's plans cannot be enough. Biden père surely would have to take some specific action intended to block the testimony.
We would also be remiss if we did not point out something else. If knowing that someone is going to ignore a House subpoena is an offense, then surely a person who actually does ignore a subpoena is even more guilty of an offense, right? And we know at least one current officeholder who ignored a House subpoena. Actually, we know four of them, though one is a short-timer: Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Scott Perry (R-PA) and... Jim Jordan. All of them, of course, blew off subpoenas from the 1/6 Committee.
Members of the House cannot be impeached, of course. But the fundamental goal of Comer and Jordan, besides just generally trying to create an aura of corruption around Joe Biden, is to convince roughly 215 of their colleagues to vote in favor of an impeachment resolution. We suspect that the hypocrisy implicit in this current line of attack means that this is not the path to 215. Every Republican member, but especially the Biden 17, would be asked daily: "How come Joe Biden is wrong for allegedly knowing about his son's plans, but Jordan/McCarthy/Biggs/Perry are not wrong for actually defying a House subpoena?" If there's a good answer to that question, we don't know what it is. (Z)