What happened in the House today makes complete and total sense. You saw the joke of Kevin McCarthy launching an impeachment inquiry with zero evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Joe Biden and not even having the full support of his own party. That is what the House is these days. That is what the Republican party is. It’s buffoonery, political theater, performance art. The cart is in front of the horse and everything is being done bass ackwards. And the Republicans know this and yet they defend it as perfectly normal.
Collins: Isn’t it supposed to be the evidence that leads you to pursue an impeachment inquiry?
Mace: That's what the inquiry is for, to get more evidence. pic.twitter.com/e2ETP3gW7g— Acyn (@Acyn) September 12, 2023
You probably heard that Donald Trump was chitchatting with Elise Stefanik and others in the House. He’s pulling the impeachment strings from behind the scenes, not surprisingly. Politico:
The former president has been speaking weekly with House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, who was the first member of Republican leadership to come out in support of impeachment. The two spoke Tuesday, after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced Republicans would be pursuing the inquiry, according to two people familiar with the conversation.
And you may have heard that Stefanik is possibly going to be Trump’s VP candidate. Marge and Kari won’t like that, but if it’s a choice between those two idiots and somebody who at least has a legitimate educational background and has been in Congress a while, Stefanik would be a logical choice. The question becomes, is she stupid enough to accept the offer? And since she’s helping Trump dismantle democracy by pursuing an invalid, specious, makeweight, utterly frivolous impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden, it would appear that the answer is yes.
Stefanik has been a longtime Trump ally. She endorsed his comeback presidential bid before he made his official announcement and has been mentioned as a potential Trump VP pick should he win the GOP nomination.
On Sunday night, Trump had dinner at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), an ally of Trump and McCarthy. At the gathering, the topic of impeachment was discussed, according to a person familiar with the conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The former president has not been shy about his belief that Biden should be impeached. Late last month he wrote on Truth Social: “Either IMPEACH the BUM, or fade into OBLIVION. THEY DID IT TO US.”
It is utterly lost on Trump that he got impeached for trying to extort, in effect, the president of Ukraine into making up lies about Joe Biden because that would be convenient for him, and because he incited a riot in the Capitol — not to mention suggesting to his MAGA fans that his own vice president was a traitor, triggering “Hang Mike Pence” and “Fuck Mike Pence” chants. We never saw that in the nation’s capitol, not even close, before the era of Trump.
Lincoln Project has distilled the situation down to another 1:00 mini epic.
By backing the impeachment inquiry, Kevin McCarthy is showing the world what the Republican Party stands for: chaos, disorder, and division.pic.twitter.com/08PHGquLOz
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) September 13, 2023
And I’m getting tired of typing the words “it gets worse” but I guess I better get used to it because this is the new abnormal. This is what Trump hath wrought. The freaking impeachment inquiry is NOT VALID and that is due to a DOJ opinion rendered by Trump’s DOJ at the time. This is all a waste of time and it will not end well. PoliticusUSA:
According to the opinion written in 2020 by the DOJ Office Of Legal Counsel:
[W]e conclude that the House must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation before the committee may compel the production of documents or testimony,
The House had not authorized such an investigation in connection with the impeachment-related subpoenas issued before October 31, 2019, and the subpoenas therefore had no compulsory effect.
According to the DOJ, the only valid impeachment investigations are authorized by the House. If the House has not authorized the investigation, the subpoenas are invalid and the respondents can’t be compelled to comply.
In other words, Trump’s DOJ created an issue for House Republicans that we will discuss below.
Kevin McCarthy Has A Math Problem
Speaker McCarthy launched the impeachment investigation on his own because he did not have the votes to pass a resolution authorizing the impeachment investigation.
Due to several Republican absences this week, the speaker may lack enough votes to pass any legislation. McCarthy has several members of his caucus who are opposed to the impeachment path, so he was trying to spare them from having to vote on an impeachment investigation while giving the MAGAs what they wanted.
The problem is that McCarthy’s solution might not be legal.
Once Reps. Jordan, Comer, and Smith start dishing out subpoenas, they are going to immediately be taken to court, and the validity of the impeachment investigation will be questioned.
McCarthy will then have to hope to win in court or get the Republicans in districts that President Biden won to commit career suicide by voting for an impeachment investigation.
Either way, House Republicans won’t be getting any documents or information any time soon.
Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the votes to do impeachment the legal way, but if he doesn’t do impeachment, Trump and the MAGAs are going file a motion to vacate and remove him as Speaker.
This is the ultimate Catch-22 for Kevin McCarthy, yes. We saw that earlier Tuesday morning when Matt Gaetz said he would “lead the resistance against the uniparty,” and that would be the end of McCarthy, was the implication. Gaetz made it clear he intended to remove the Speaker. But it’s not just McCarthy who is doomed. The party is on a kamikaze mission and Trump is the pilot leading the planes in formation. Somehow they don’t see this. Stefanik and many of the others have fine legal educations, but somehow they don’t see the obvious.
- McCarthy has bought himself a few more days/hours, but that’s all he accomplished today. He’s whistling past the graveyard if he thinks this fantasy impeachment inquiry of his is going to grow legs. Comer said he got all the information he asked for. He still didn’t find anything. Duh?
- The government will be shut down at the end of Q3, which is in a couple of weeks. Is McCarthy going to spend time with the necessary appropriations bills, or is he going to play impeachment detective? Invalid impeachment detective, no less?
- McCarthy may end up kissing his career goodbye in any event, because if he forces his House members in districts that Biden won to vote for an impeachment, bye bye majority and bye bye job in any event.
You’d think that they’d remember that little bit of history that most of them participated in, the Clinton impeachment. Remember how the voters punished them for their hypocritical charges, and strengthened Clinton’s support, helping him to his second term.
And back then, incredibly specious and shallow as it was, they had a reason to attempt impeachment.
This time, they don’t even have any reason, other than ‘politics as performance art’.
For them, electoral oblivion looms large.
Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it
What I find amusing is that the impeachment of Biden is strictly for political ends, yet Trump’s claims that both of his impeachments AND all four of his indictments are for that. And Trump has broken every law in the book, morally and legally.
Actually I don’t find it amusing. The only point, and I do mean the ONLY point, of this fake impeachment against Biden is to try to remove any meaning from the utterly valid (and very slow in coming) impeachments and indictments of Trump, trying to gaslight by creating some phony moral equivalency between Trump and Biden. I don’t think it works with any other voters than MAGA Republicans, but still it continuous to destroy whatever semblance of brain cells they may have left, not to mention further poisoning public dialogue i this country.
But won’t this just get Gym Jordan off the hook? Fani Willis’ letter to him got a dig in about how he blew off the J6 Committee subpoena. Now all the Rs have to do is say ” LOOK, they blew off our subpoenas, too!!! They’re just as bad.” Of course, they’ll neglect to mention their subpoenas weren’t worth diddly because…facts & law.
Geez, the facts & law crap again. Can’t wait for MSM to bury this little lede at the bottom of the article after the headline screams “Demon Democrat flips bird to 23 House Judiciary Comm Subpoenas” – of course all of the subpoenas were illegal because there was no vote in the house to start an impeachment. you know like legally required.
Yuck!
Performance bullshit indeed.
President Biden’s evidence of wrongdoing: 0
Former guy’s evidence of wrongdoing: is there a number large enough?
If they do get bank records, you know the pipes will bust and they’ll scrutinize every dollar our President has spent. Of course the conspiracy nuts will go full fruitcake making Q come back to life in an election year. Not to mention Pukin getting his bot teams rev’ed up. Of course first they need to get the records. Perhaps they’ll only get deposits? I don’t know how that works…
Donnie Boy is hoping to.find a loyal female sycophant to be his VP. He thinks it will make him look less of a misogynist. Surprise! It won’t.
Well it’s might surprise you but I seriously doubt that Trump really gives a sh-t what he looks like. He will go with a female for votes. Nikki was in the running until she started talking about his attributes. I never thought she had much of a chance though. Through Trump thinking Nikki gets down to the wire and throws Trump under the bus, she’s got the name to carry on. No Trumps going to want a mouse. Although it’s going to have to be a very active smart mouse. Stefanik is all over that. Now if she doesn’t make it then she will have plenty of time to set up for the next senate race in a couple of years. Be hard to beat. If I’m not mistaken that would be Chuck Schumers seat. I think they are both New York. I seen something on this back four or five months ago. Yeah, Stefanik has a taste for power. She tried to take down Adam Schiff and found that ain’t no easy mountain to climb.
That’s what I said from the start when Trump announced he was running again and Mikey wasn’t. Stefanik is smart and she knows her place what is it two steps behind the man. Just saying she’s sucking up to a chauvinistic pig so she better get the rules down. What the main point we have in all this is that Hunter is smart. He knows how to set up and run businesses. He knows more than the combined idiots that are chasing their tails trying to figure out what he’s doing. And he makes a lot of money doing it. What I believe in the end we will find out was that Hunter was trying to move money to relatives so they could live better lives. Some of it might have been slightly unethical but I doubt that he broke any major laws doing it. And that’s the part that once they get done sticking a microscope up his ass that I think he’s going to enjoy when he turn’s around and sues them for defamation of character.
What office does Hunter hold?
“Let’s have a trial!!!”
“What are the charges?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’ll think of something after the trial starts – like ‘He’s Hunter Biden’s father’ and he got more votes than our glorious leader. Now that’s a crime”
I think they’d like to skip any charges and a trial – and just go straight to the sentencing