Republicans on Thursday voted to commence the formalities that could lead to Joe Biden’s impeachment, as far-right lawmakers are putting up plans in place to seize the-party’s agenda and escalate a bitter standoff with the US President.
The House of Representatives which is Republican-controlled voted along party lines to refer a resolution that accuses the 80-year-old Democrat of ‘abuse of power’ and “dereliction of duty” to the judiciary and homeland security committees.
Republicans accuse Biden of failing to control immigration, leading to the country’s ‘complete and total invasion’ and ‘surrender of operational control’ of the US-Mexico border to ‘foreign, criminal cartels.’
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Democrats claim that the Republicans are merely diverting attention away from the ex-president Donald Trump’s mounting legal problems. Trump is currently charged with more than 70 felonies for financial fraud, mishandling classified information, and impeding law enforcement.
After an investigation into his finances, Hunter Biden, the vice president’s son, has agreed to plead guilty to federal tax evasion charges. However, the president himself has never been implicated in any wrongdoing, according to detractors.
‘You can’t make this stuff up. Their extremism continues to be on full display,’ House Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters in Congress.
‘And they are doing nothing, nothing, nothing to enhance the health, the safety or the economic wellbeing of the American people.’
Impeachment by the House — the political equivalent of a criminal indictment — would spark a ‘trial’ by the Senate’s 100 members, who can vote to remove a president with a two-thirds majority vote.
Trump, who was impeached twice, is among three presidents to face the rebuke, although he was shielded from conviction by Republican allies in the Senate on both occasions.
While the Democrats united against Trump, House Republicans have been hamstrung by infighting this time around, with the leadership pushing back against a frivolous impeachment process that would be stymied in the Democratic-led Senate in any case.
Lauren Boebert, the far-right firebrand who drafted the Biden resolution, initially pushed for a straight vote on impeachment without a committee procedure that would likely have led to embarrassing infighting on the House floor.
Oversight and Accountability Committee chairman James Comer is already leading a probe into unsubstantiated claims that Biden took bribes while he was a vice president and doesn’t expect to release a report for several months.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — who has struggled to lead his raucous grouping, with its narrow, four-vote majority — has argued that the rank-and-file needs to let Comer finish his work, and allow any action to go through the normal committee process.