Senate Republicans see Biden impeachment as fraught with risk

[mystery-ak]

Senate Republicans see Biden impeachment as fraught with risk
by Alexander Bolton - 07/26/23 6:00 AM ET

Senate Republicans see impeaching President Biden ahead of the 2024 election as a risky political strategy that could turn off moderate voters and are hoping to wave their House GOP colleagues off from marching down that road.

GOP senators say the party is better off focused on how to improve Americans’ lives in the future instead of fighting messy battles to settle past political scores.

“Staying focused on the future and not the past is in my view the best way to change the direction of the country and that’s to win an election,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) told reporters Tuesday. 

Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairwoman Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said Tuesday she would prefer to focus on national security policy, which the Senate is debating this week as it wraps up work on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). 

“I’m really focused on NDAA right now. I really want to see it get done and I want a bipartisan deal between the House and the Senate. I think that’s what we’re focused on,” Ernst told reporters. “We need to get our [appropriations] bills done, too. So, that’s what we’re going to focus on in the Senate.”

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https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4119381-senate-republicans-see-biden-impeachment-as-fraught-with-risk/

[Kamaji]

And they'd be correct.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

And they'd be correct.

I can see one argument for how it might make sense.

The virtue of doing impeachment is that it gives the House stronger subpoena power. That may make it a lot easier to get documents and incriminating evidence than it might otherwise be, and if the goal is to expose the level of corruption, that would help.

If you buy into the theory that the Democrats are going to have Biden drop out at some point, then the negatives of an impeachment aren't so bad because the Republicans could drop the impeachment based on Biden's announcement that he's not running for reelection.  And, if Biden did make an announcement that he wasn't running for reelection while the impeachment is pending, the impeachment might look more legitimate because the Republicans could claim it forced him to drop out of the race.

[Kamaji]

I can see one argument for how it might make sense.

The virtue of doing impeachment is that it gives the House stronger subpoena power. That may make it a lot easier to get documents and incriminating evidence than it might otherwise be, and if the goal is to expose the level of corruption, that would help.

If you buy into the theory that the Democrats are going to have Biden drop out at some point, then the negatives of an impeachment aren't so bad because the Republicans could drop the impeachment based on Biden's announcement that he's not running for reelection.  And, if Biden did make an announcement that he wasn't running for reelection while the impeachment is pending, the impeachment might look more legitimate because the Republicans could claim it forced him to drop out of the race.

Except that, if the republicans dropped an ongoing impeachment just because Biden dropped out of the race, that would have severe blowback because the republicans would be accused of having used impeachment to force Biden out of the race, not to go after actual high crimes and misdemeanors.

I do not think that would be an advisable strategy.

[Bigun]

Senate Republicans see Biden impeachment as fraught with risk

What have those feckless bastards ever seen that wasn't? I'll wait.