Congressional Biden Ally Dismisses Republicans’ Impeachment Strategy – A prominent congressional ally of Joe Biden has dismissed the idea that Republicans can entice fellow Democrats into initiating an impeachment inquiry as a means to clear the president of any concerns regarding his son’s business dealings.
Ro Khanna, a congressman from California, emphasized on Fox News Sunday that the primary focus should be on funding the government and addressing the concerns of the American people. He was referring to the stance taken by some far-right Republicans who have linked support for new funding to the potential initiation of a Biden impeachment inquiry, which could prevent a partial federal government shutdown after September 30th.
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Khanna, a leading progressive who sits on the US House’s oversight committee and is a member of Biden’s re-election advisory board, added: “There is no grounds for an impeachment inquiry, and this is why” Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy lacks the votes necessary to have already called one.
Khanna’s comments on the Republican-friendly news program were in response to host Maria Bartiromo’s suggestion that supporting a Biden impeachment could be an opportunity for the president to prove the baselessness of allegations of corruption related to his son Hunter’s foreign business deals. Bartiromo also mentioned that Republican Congressman Scott Perry, a fellow House oversight committee member, had previously made a similar argument in favor of impeaching Biden.
She referred to Fox News polling data indicating that a percentage of voters believed Biden may have engaged in something unethical or potentially illegal regarding Hunter’s business dealings. However, Khanna countered Bartiromo and her viewers by pointing to a Washington Post opinion piece written by Colorado’s Republican House member, Ken Buck.
Buck argued in the article that there was insufficient evidence to justify impeaching Biden, maintaining this position despite his strong condemnation of the Democrat-led impeachment of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, in 2019. Trump’s first impeachment was related to attempts to gather information on his political rivals, including Biden, in relation to Ukrainian politics and business, separate from his second impeachment following the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021.
Both of Trump’s impeachments ultimately ended in acquittal. Khanna also noted that other Republicans had publicly shared Buck’s opinion, asserting that impeaching Biden would, at best, be a futile distraction. This contrasted sharply with the generally unified stance Democrats had taken when voting to impeach Trump, according to Khanna’s argument.
“I mean, when we impeached President Trump, every Democrat voted for it,” said Khanna, though two House members belonging to his party opposed the 2019 impeachment. The GOP House speaker, Khanna said, “simply doesn’t have the votes on his side”, and a substantial number of Republicans in the chamber have expressed their preference to focus on avoiding a government shutdown.
“Fund the government; solve people’s problems,” those Republicans say, according to Khanna. Bartiromo conceded that there were “definitely Republicans saying they don’t want to go down this road” of impeaching Biden. Amidst the growing ultra-conservative calls for Biden’s impeachment, Hunter Biden, the president’s son, faced federal firearms charges on Thursday that could result in a maximum prison sentence of 25 years.
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These charges followed the collapse of a plea deal in August, which also included two separate misdemeanor tax charges. Since the midterm elections held last year, Republicans have maintained a narrow majority in the US House, giving them the authority to draft articles of impeachment. In contrast, Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate, where a two-thirds majority vote is required to convict and subsequently remove an impeached official from office.
