It’s not yet clear exactly what will happen with House Republicans’ willingness to impeach President Joe Biden. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has clearly opened the door widely, raising the specter of an “impeachment inquiry” more than once this week, but Congress’ top GOP lawmaker hasn’t announced any kind of specific timelines or thresholds.
That said, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer talked to reporters late last week about his perspective, which went a long way toward offering a peek behind a partisan curtain. Raw Story specifically asked the Kentucky Republican whether Capitol Hill will start to devolve into non-stop impeachments when competing parties control the House and White House.
“Well, you know, if it is, it’s because the Democrats impeached Donald Trump twice,” complained Comer, indicating that the impeachments are about retaliation. “And I blame this impeachment craze on the Democrats and a lot of voters feel like, well they impeached Trump twice and we should impeach Biden. And again, that’s irresponsibility on the Democrats’ side.”
The GOP committee chairman added that Congress has arrived at this point “because the Democrats used their impeachment power.”
Broadly speaking, there are two important flaws with this.
First, it’s worth appreciating the degree to which Comer’s comments highlight a larger partisan asymmetry. In 1998, for example, House Republicans launched an impeachment crusade against Bill Clinton. GOP leaders knew the then-Democratic president wouldn’t be convicted in the Senate. They also knew the impeachment effort was widely unpopular with the public. They even knew that impeachment was an overly provocative response to Clinton’s private misdeeds.
But House Republicans didn’t much care. They wanted to impeach Clinton, so they did.
Congressional Democrats were not pleased — though the party was delighted to pick up seats in the 1998 midterm elections, thanks in large part to a public backlash to the GOP’s overreach — but we didn’t hear party leaders pushing for George W. Bush’s impeachment as a retaliatory response.
Indeed, Comer might not remember this, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her team went out of their way to avoid impeaching Trump. Even after the Mueller report came out, and one House Republican conceded that Trump deserved to be impeached, Democratic leaders focused their attention elsewhere.
The party only impeached the Republican when Trump left Democrats with little choice given his obvious misconduct. Indeed, let’s not forget that one GOP senator voted with Democrats to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial, and his second impeachment was even more bipartisan.
The second problem with Comer’s take is that it’s not altogether logical. If a police officer arrested a car thief caught in the act of stealing a car, it does not mean that the thief would be justified in trying to later arrest the police officer. That’s not how any of this works.
Similarly, while it’s true that congressional Democrats impeached a Republican president, that doesn’t automatically create the basis for congressional Republicans to impeach a Democratic president.
What matters is merit. Comer’s right that “Democrats used their impeachment power,” but that’s because they caught Trump committing high crimes. There was evidence of wrongdoing, which led to congressional action. In contrast, Comer and his GOP cohorts have failed to produce any incriminating evidence against Biden.
It’s why the idea of tit-for-tat impeachments is so ludicrous.
A New York Times report on the broader story added, “Some Republicans have ... argued that the House must find actual corruption or wrongdoing before lawmakers consider impeachment.”
The question the political world should probably consider is simple: Why is it that only “some Republicans” believe this?