President Kevin McCarthy may not have hair dye slowly dripping down his face like Rudy Giuliani, but he’s in big trouble and sweating just as much. McCarthy is desperately trying to use a baseless and unwarranted impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden to cling to power. While we know that any attempt to label him a coward will not stop him from moving forward in this transparent, transactional attempt to keep the gavel, he must know that it will backfire on him.
His presidency was won – after 15 agonizing rounds – by striking a corrupt deal with MAGA extremists who ensured they would have functional control of the House in exchange for their votes to allow McCarthy to sit in the big boy’s chair, banging with a hammer and pretending to be in charge. The bill is now due.
Just as MAGA called for former Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged after spending years kneeling before former President Donald Trump, extremists in the House caucus are now threatening to remove McCarthy from power unless he no longer acts quickly on their requests. Those demands include impeaching Biden and shutting down the government to get the spending cuts and policy changes they demand. This would seriously harm the economy and go against what the American people want.
In order to appease his extremist members, McCarthy unilaterally declared that they were opening an impeachment inquiry, breaking his promise less than two weeks ago that there would be a vote for or against impeachment.
But McCarthy had to forgo a vote on impeachment because their investigations so far have been such a failure that nearly 30 members of his own caucus think there isn’t enough evidence to move forward. Before. Many of these members do not want to vote on a fragile impeachment attempt because their seats are in districts won by President Biden and their vulnerability is undeniably tied to this vote.
All 30 Republican members of McCarthy’s caucus are right. Facts First, the bipartisan organization we co-chair recently released a report ahead of the latest Republican primary debate comprehensively describing how Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), have nothing but lies and conspiracies to throw at the wall. Nothing sticks.
If Americans have a strange sense of déjà vu over these baseless attacks on the Biden family, it’s because we’ve been here before. These are the same conspiracy theories that Trump used to try to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into validating them. These are the same lies that Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon spent years gossiping about and yet had no chance to validate.
Despite a lack of evidence, the Trump administration opened an investigation into the allegations, hoping to find concrete links between the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and wrongdoing related to his father while he was vice president. -president. The investigation lasted five years and ultimately found nothing except minor tax and gun violations that would never have been charged if Hunter’s last name wasn’t Biden .
But a Trump-appointed attorney general, an FBI director and a U.S. attorney finding nothing credible wouldn’t stop Jordan and Comer from continuing the partisan witch hunt in service of their true goal: harming President Biden’s re-election chances and help Trump return to power. the Oval Office. Jordan proudly said CPAC that was his plan in August 2022, even before the election and Comer said the same thing a few months ago.
And just as other MAGA extremists failed before them, Comer and Jordan found themselves plunged into an embarrassing quagmire of old and debunked allegations, being contradicted by their own witnesses and constantly criticized by journalists and fact-checkers for having lied. The situation has become so serious that their investigations are being criticized by Republicans in the House and Senate, and Comer and Jordan have been questioned repeatedly, even by Fox hosts for finding no real evidence.
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Those of you who are perhaps only slightly younger than us may not remember how senseless the impeachment attacks on former President Bill Clinton were, including former Rep. Dan Burton ( R-Ind.) pulling watermelons in his backyard to try to prove the Clintons murdered someone. .
Comer and Jordan proudly follow in Burton’s footsteps by citing some so-called witnesses or whistleblowers who have faced their own disciplinary charges, including for supporting the January 6 insurrectionists.
Let’s be really clear: None of this will stop MAGA from continuing to baselessly attack the Biden family. Trump has ordered House Republicans to impeach Biden and nothing will stop them or the right-wing media from doing everything they can to try to harm Biden as 2024 approaches.
So far, President Biden has the truth on his side, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Mary.) and the Democrats on the committee have done a remarkable job of refuting the lies and exposing the facts. President Biden also has a strong record of historic achievements that help the American people by creating a record number of jobs, lowering prescription drug prices, capping insulin at $35, bringing back jobs to the sector manufacturing, fighting the climate crisis, investing in veterans and fighting the climate crisis. inflation.
Ultimately, this partisan and baseless impeachment will backfire politically on McCarthy and MAGA extremists, just as it did on Newt Gingrich and the House Republicans when they impeached Clinton. This current impeachment attempt, even more misguided, will serve to motivate the Democratic base and remind independents and moderate Republicans that Republican leaders who owe their power to extremists to govern cannot be trusted. You can’t learn from history, facts, or truth if you don’t believe in any of the three.
David Jolly is a former Republican congressman from Florida and Maria Cardona is a longtime Democratic strategist and former Democratic Party spokesperson. They are both television political commentators and together co-chair Facts First USA, a bipartisan nonprofit organization that ensures our national discourse is based on facts and honest debate.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors.
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