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If there’s one thing former President Donald Trump loathes, it’s what he deems as insufficient loyalty to his illiberal causes — or going “soft,” as he calls it. (I know, I know: odd phrasing.)
And after months of leading the charge for President Joe Biden to be impeached, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to have committed a MAGA movement cardinal sin. It seems she has, in fact, gone soft.
The Georgia Republican has already written up articles of impeachment. But she has started to pull back, instead demanding that the House open an impeachment inquiry. And her stance appears to diverge from Trump’s more urgent cries for GOPers to get on with it already.
Greene tried to explain her rationale in a social media post Saturday.
“Our country deserves for Congress to vote for an impeachment inquiry for very important reasons, not a rush impeachment vote,” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In her post, Greene baselessly claimed that House Republicans have discovered “a vast amount of people in previous administrations, this administration, and federal agencies that all worked diligently to cover up unbelievable corruption and crimes committed by the Biden’s and Joe himself.”
But the most important part of her conspiratorial post pertains to the timing of the GOP’s impeachment push. She called for a “very tedious impeachment inquiry” with an indefinite end date.
“It must be done right,” she wrote. “No matter how long it takes.”
As I see it, a couple of factors could be behind Greene’s backtracking.
As I see it, a couple of factors could be behind Greene’s backtracking.
For one, she’s facing internal pushback, including from Republicans in battleground districts who are concerned about fallout — particularly in districts won by Biden in 2020. New polling supports that theory.
Greene’s push also has been fiercely criticized by Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, a fellow Republican. So her attempt to elucidate her reasoning for exploring impeachment could be seen as a response to such criticism.
On the other hand, pushing for an inquiry rather than impeachment itself could have political benefits for Republicans.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has openly said an inquiry “provides Congress the apex of legal power to get all the information they need,” and I can imagine a scenario in which Republicans use an inquiry as an indefinite fishing expedition to air conspiracy theories about Biden — without entering a formal impeachment process all but certain to end in acquittal.
Either way, Greene is pumping the brakes on impeaching Biden — something she rabidly supported for over two years. I wonder if Trump can hear the tires screeching.