When Should Impeachment Take Place?

The word impeachment was seldom heard historically, but it is heard more often these days. The House of Representatives has impeached only three Presidents of the United States, but none of them were convicted by the Senate. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1866, and Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998. Donald Trump was impeached in 2019 and again in 2021, the only POTUS to be impeached twice. Richard Nixon resigned before he could be impeached in 1974.

Trump’s first impeachment came from a telephone conversation with Ukraine President Zelenskyy about rumored corruption by Joe Biden. Now, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy signaled that he is open to a possible impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden over corruption in Ukraine. Was Trump wrongly impeached?

McCarthy indicated in an interview with Fox News that questions about the Biden corruption are “rising to the level of impeachment inquiry.” In an article in the Deseret News, D. Hunter Schwarz wrote the following: 

McCarthy said the Bidens were allegedly paid bribes by foreign businesses and referenced IRS whistleblowers who accused the Justice Department of interfering in an investigation into Hunter Biden, who said he would plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges last month.

“We only followed where the information has taken us, but this is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed,” McCarthy said….

An impeachment inquiry is a first step to potentially remove a U.S. president from office. When launched by a House Speaker, an inquiry allows a committee to investigate alleged wrongdoing. If the committee votes for articles of impeachment, the House can vote whether or not to impeach and the Senate can then vote whether or not to convict and remove from office.

McCarthy accused Biden of weaponizing government to “benefit his family and deny Congress the ability to have the oversight,” which he called “something that we have not seen since Richard Nixon.”

McCarthy expressed the obvious: none of the Biden family corruption would be known if Republicans did not have the majority in the House. He also indicated that Republicans only went from the information led them. However, McCarthy is not yet ready to launch an impeachment inquiry because he does not want to use impeachment for “political purposes.”

Republicans have bank records collaborating Biden money laundering, and they have heard testimony from whistle blowers testifying of other evidence of corruption. Evidence continues to mount against the Biden crime family, so I would not be surprised to hear of the start to impeachment hearings.

I am totally against impeachment being used for political purposes. However, the Constitution lays out the conditions when impeachment should be used. Article II, Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

If the whistleblowers told the truth in their testimonies before Congress and if the bank records prove money from Russia, China, Ukraine, Romania, and other nations was being laundered by the Biden family, it is possible that Joe Biden is guilty of bribery and deserves to be impeached. I support Republicans taking plenty of time to gather all the evidence before impeaching Biden.