Democrats have been willing to throw everything up against the wall and all the rules under the bus in the effort to take down former President Donald Trump.
But Republicans have been reticent even to use the proper tools available to legally pursue Democrats when they don’t comply with the rules or laws. It’s one of the things that most ticks off the Republican base. There never seem to be any consequences for Democratic bad behavior. If there are never any repercussions for such behavior, then people continue doing it so long as it serves their political purposes.
As I reported earlier, now we have Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) explaining that there are audio tapes of the conversations that the foreign national Burisma executive had with Hunter and Joe Biden about the “bribery scheme” that the Burisma executive kept as an “insurance policy.” That may indeed be a smoking gun, and that raises even more questions about Joe Biden’s actions regarding Ukraine, including the funneling of billions to the country.
Now things are heating up.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) has filed articles of impeachment against both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and the reason is a perfect one to apply to both of them: the “weaponization” of their offices, not just for what Biden and Harris are doing since they came into power, but also for what Biden did as vice president to “shield the business and influence peddling schemes of his family from congressional oversight and public accountability.”
The first article alleges that Biden has failed to comply with “congressional requests for information and documentation, violating a personal commitment to transparency.”
In doing so, the articles argue, Biden acted against the “public trust” and was “subversive of constitutional government to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
The second article alleges that Biden has failed to properly defend the United States because of the disaster at the border “in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, directly facilitated the ongoing southern border crisis and endangered the people of the United States,” and it laid out some of the facts to support that charge.
The articles against Harris go after her handling of the border disaster, alleging “extraordinary incompetence in the execution of her duties and responsibilities and an indifference to Americans suffering as a result of America’s ongoing southern border crisis.” Ogles said that she’s allowed a land invasion of the border to go unchecked and therefore “directly betrayed the public trust of the United States, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
Ogles said that we can’t depend on the DOJ to hold Biden accountable, so Congress has to take action.
Ogles dealt mostly with the weaponization question, which is certainly the most dangerous aspect. But they also could at some point go into the question of Biden’s classified document scandal and how he allegedly had documents going back to 1974. It’s hard to imagine how Biden could justify that, given that senators would have to view such material in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) and could not remove it.
Ogles is bringing these articles of impeachment forward, but every GOP member should be signing on board. Even if it gets stopped in the Senate, Biden and Harris need to face the consequences for their bad actions and for the weaponization of their offices. All of them need to be on record saying enough is enough and holding the president to account.