This hardly seems what the Founding Fathers had in mind. In fact, it exemplifies what they feared.
When they debated the Constitution’s impeachment clause, there was some disagreement over defining the instances in which this most serious sanction would be appropriate.
After agreeing on “treason” and “bribery,” they wanted to find a way to define official malfeasance. George Mason suggested “maladministration,” a term already used in six states. But James Madison objected, saying, “so vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate.”
Ultimately, they added the phrase “other high crimes and misdemeanors,” leaving future generations to define what that meant.
Subsequent presidential impeachments show how broadly it has been interpreted, ranging from lying about questionable personal acts (Bill Clinton) to misuse of governmental authority for political gain (Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Donald Trump).
Now, under pressure from his rabidly right-wing faction, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has decided to apply the constitutional standard to Joe Biden, even though months of Republican investigations have uncovered nothing remotely resembling “high crimes and misdemeanors,” nor treason or bribery.
They suggest this may enable them to widen the net of Biden family financial documents subject to subpoena, hopeful of uncovering tangible evidence the president benefited from his son’s ventures or, perhaps, enabling them to accuse him of obstructing their investigation if he refuses, a standard aspect of all recent impeachments.
But they set no goal or time frame for the investigation, and, unlike some prior presidential impeachments, most don’t appear interested in forcing Biden’s removal from office, lest that elevate Vice President Kamala Harris to the presidency.
Rather, their goal seems nakedly political — to weaken Biden’s public standing and offset the impact of the four pending criminal cases against Trump.
Unfortunately, they seem to be succeeding, even before starting formal impeachment proceedings.
“You look at the polling and right now Donald Trump is seven points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward. Joe Biden’s trending downward,” contended House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, touting the impact of his panel’s probes in an interview with Ashley Strohmier of Fox News.
While Comer somewhat exaggerated, a recent CNN poll showed six of 10 sampled thought Biden had been involved in his son Hunter’s questionable overseas business dealings, and two-thirds of those thought he had acted illegally.
And a Fox News poll showed nearly half of those sampled agreed the word “corrupt” describes Biden, only a few points less than Trump.
These efforts follow the script McCarthy touted eight years ago for the GOP’s effort to weaken another Democratic presidential candidate.
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right,” the California Republican told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an October 2015 interview. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”
Trump, who sometimes commits the Washington “gaffe” of inadvertently blurting out the truth, speculated – with reason — that his impeachments prompted the one against Biden.
“They did it to me,” Trump told former Fox and NBC host Megyn Kelly during a SiriusXM radio interview last week. “And had they not done it to me, I think, and nobody officially said this, but I think had they not done it to me … perhaps you wouldn’t have it being done to them.”
The two situations are very different. But there are some connections.
Trump’s initial impeachment stemmed from his phone call threatening Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he might withhold congressionally approved arms aid unless the Ukrainians revived an investigation of Hunter Biden’s activities with an energy company there.
As vice president, Biden played a major role in ousting the country’s chief prosecutor, on corruption grounds. Trump and other GOP critics contend without proof that his real motive was to benefit his son’s activities there.
Until the phone call surfaced, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had resisted liberal Democrats seeking to start impeachment proceedings. But when seven prominent moderates joined them, she acted. On the December 2019 vote to impeach Trump, all but two Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans voted against.
In the Senate trial, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney was the only Republican to join the Democrats in voting to convict Trump; the 48-52 vote was well short of the necessary two-thirds.
Trump’s second impeachment stemmed from his role in inciting the violent Jan. 6, 2021, takeover of the Capitol as Congress was meeting to certify Biden’s election. This time, 10 House Republicans joined the Democrats.
In that Senate trial, held after Trump left office, seven GOP senators joined all 50 Democrats to form a 57-43 majority, 10 votes short of two-thirds.
Both impeachments stemmed from specific acts by Trump. Some Republicans have been calling for Biden’s impeachment since they captured the House last November. But despite months of investigation, they have not yet uncovered anything specific to warrant it, though they hope further investigation will.
Trump’s comments basically confirmed the “tit for tat” partisan motivation of McCarthy and his House Republicans.
One of the Founding Fathers’ principal fears was the prospect of such partisanship — Alexander Hamilton called political parties “the most fatal disease of democratic government.”
And in Federalist No. 65, he presciently expressed concern that, in cases of impeachment, “the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstration of innocence or guilt.”
