MAGA Mike Johnson's Empty Impeachment

Presidential impeachments are historically rare, a momentous event designed to respond to serious wrongdoing. This week Mike Johnson is expected to launch a formal Presidential impeachment inquiry in the House, but this time instead of focusing on Trump’s dangerous attempts to undermine our national security or overthrow our Democracy, they’re focused on… well, they’re not quite sure. House Republicans’ months-long investigations into President Biden’s finances have come up empty-handed and even their MAGA colleagues in the Senate say that there’s zero evidence of wrongdoing, but Donald Trump wants him impeached, so MAGA Mike is going to try and deliver. It’s a cynical, destructive move that does nothing to help our communities or pass important legislation. Republicans in Congress are wasting time and tax dollars, all in an effort to politically damage President Biden, appease Trump, and distract from their own inability to govern.

How we’re talking about it:

Impeachment does nothing to help our communities. Since taking control of the House, Republicans have been unable to deliver on even the basic tasks of government, like passing a budget or renewing the Farm Bill. Instead of working together to strengthen the economy, pass crucial foreign aid, or protect social security and Medicare, Republicans are wasting our time and tax dollars on political games and attacks on the President’s son.

Donald Trump is calling the shots in the House. Just a few weeks ago, new House Speaker Mike Johnson told his fellow Republicans that there was insufficient evidence to merit opening a formal inquiry. But obeying Donald Trump’s repeated demands for a Biden impeachment (and appeasing his far-right MAGA voting base) proved more important than following the evidence, so they’re moving ahead anyway.

This is a political stunt designed to damage Joe Biden in the 2024 election. How do we know? Because Republicans said so, out loud, in public. From James Comer talking glowingly about impeachment’s impact on poll numbers to Trump ally Rep. Troy Nehls saying he wants to give the former President “a little bit of ammo to fire back” by impeaching Biden, MAGA Republicans have been refreshingly candid about the purely political nature of this whole process.

Even Republicans say there’s no evidence. After almost a year of committee hearings and reviewing tens of thousands of pages of financial documents, they’ve been unable to find a single shred of evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. Their own star witness said so during their single, disastrous public impeachment hearing, and the few elected Republicans not beholden to the MAGA movement have spoken out against the political weaponization of what was intended as a weighty response to serious wrongdoing.

Republicans have been openly calling for a revenge Biden impeachment since before the election. Why? Payback for Trump’s well-deserved impeachments for election interference and insurrection. This entire process has been an unsuccessful fishing expedition, desperately trying to find some evidence to justify a meaningless Biden impeachment that Marjorie Taylor Greene and MAGA Republicans have been demanding for years.

Republicans have nothing to run on in 2024, and they know it. No bipartisan accomplishments, no signature legislation, nothing that’s improved life for American families. Their only hope is a shameless partisan appeal to extreme right-wing voters hungry for vengeance, and this impeachment is a central part of that strategy.