The Impeachment Drive Is Already In Trouble
Yesterday, I wrote about how Speaker Kevin McCarthy was sticking by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and that they appear to have landed on a precarious, half-baked plan: announce an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, but refrain from taking an actual full House floor vote to authorize it. Greene had laid out the rationale, such as it was, in a controversial post on social media.
Just hours after I published my piece, Speaker McCarthy, who seemed visibly agitated, announced this plan, insisting unilaterally that there would be an impeachment inquiry, but it would not be put to a full House floor vote. He of course very much understood that, were he actually to put it to a vote, it would likely fail.
But McCarthy’s “impeachment inquiry” plan is already off the rails in a way that could embarrass him badly, and it speaks to two other truths that will further sink the GOP’s electoral chances next year. Today, I’ll explain why McCarthy’s impeachment-inquiry-without-a-vote is already legally doomed, and then discuss the pair of bricks that will weigh down the GOP as it treads water before next year’s elections: the Trump ego factor and the McCarthy ego factor.
Let’s jump in and swim with these fools in this choppy waters for a bit.
An impeachment inquiry without a House floor vote is legally moribund
A dozen days ago, McCarthy made it clear that he intended to hold a full House floor vote to fully authorize an impeachment inquiry. He told Breitbart on September 1:
The American people deserve to be heard… That’s why, if we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person.
This echoed what McCarthy had said in 2019 when criticizing then Speaker Nancy Pelosi for launching an impeachment inquiry into Trump for threatening Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy with withholding military aid unless Ukraine did him a “favor” to smear Joe Biden politically. He put Pelosi on blast four years ago, going before cameras and declaring,
Our job is to legislate. Not to continue to find something in the back when you cannot find any reason to impeach this president…. She cannot unilaterally decide for an impeachment inquiry.
It turns out, McCarthy of 2019 (and of a dozen days ago) is correct. You do in fact need a full House vote, and a unilateral decision by the Speaker doesn’t cut it. White House counsel at the time of the first Trump impeachment, Pat Cipollone, had indicated that the executive branch would not comply with any subpoenas from the House because there had been no actual vote to authorize the committee:
In the history of our Nation, the House... has never attempted to launch an impeachment inquiry against the President without a majority of the House taking political accountability for that decision by voting to authorize such a dramatic constitutional step.
To get around this, Pelosi eventually did hold a floor vote at the end of October 2019, to officially authorize the inquiry. But the White House refused to comply with any subpoenas issued before the authorizing vote had occurred.
To formalize this policy, the Justice Department, under then president Trump in January of 2020, issued a binding memorandum that impeachment inquiries by the House are invalid unless there is an authorizing floor vote by the full chamber. In the opinion, Steven Engel, then the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, insisted that the Trump administration was within its rights to reject subpoenas from Democratic congressional investigators:
[W]e conclude that the House must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation before the committee may compel the production of documents or testimony…
The House had not authorized such an investigation in connection with the impeachment-related subpoenas issued before October 31, 2019, and the subpoenas therefore had no compulsory effect.
Speaker McCarthy was well aware, in light of this legal opinion that the Republicans were so keen on enforcing against Pelosi, that any impeachment inquiry would require a full House vote. That’s why he said it back in 2019, and that’s why he repeated it confidently 12 days ago.
How awkward for him. This was another disastrous example of McCarthy not being able to control his caucus, nor to whip or count votes. We get it Kevin, House math is hard for you. By yesterday, McCarthy knew he didn’t have the votes to proceed with a floor vote authorizing an impeachment inquiry. Many members of his own party weren’t on board, and he could only afford to lose five of them.
Yet he went ahead anyway to announce the very kind of unilateral impeachment inquiry he had only just decried and which Trump’s own DoJ had invalidated in a binding legal opinion. The Biden White House can now point to Bill Barr’s Department’s very own memorandum to refuse to comply with any subpoenas that issue before an authorizing House vote.
The impeachment inquiry is itself already the worst kind of pointless, political theater (and I’ll go over why in an upcoming piece in The Big Picture). But the inquiry is even more pathetic now that we know it is completely invalid and toothless. Moreover, it’s likely to cause Democrats to rally around their president, who is being unfairly and unjustly targeted, while turning off critical independent voters who want to see things like inflation, gun violence and crime actually addressed.
So why would Speaker McCarthy embarrass himself in this way and further complicate his chances of keeping his House majority? It’s time to talk about the two bricks that are sinking the House GOP ahead of the elections. And both involve the egos of powerful yet craven men.
The Trump ego factor
Why all this focus on impeachment of Joe Biden, when after five years of investigating his son Hunter Biden, there still is zero evidence of any wrongdoing or illegal benefit to the president?
The answer is fairly simple: Trump wants revenge.
Trump believes that if there is a House majority that backs him, it ought to be able to do what Nancy Pelosi did to him: get him impeached. After all, it only takes a majority vote. In Trump’s mind, if Republicans are loyal to him, they will help him exact this revenge. And it must be maddening that it hasn’t happened yet.
Trump also doesn’t want to be running next year against Biden as the only candidate who was impeached, in his case twice. He wants to take away that talking point and distinction. (He may have a harder time avoiding the comparison that he has been charged with 91 violations of federal and state laws, while Biden has not.)
That’s why Trump has been busy behind the scenes driving this inquiry forward. As Politico reported, Trump has been meeting weekly with House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who through no coincidence was the first member of Republican leadership to support impeachment. The two spoke again shortly after McCarthy’s announcement.
On Sunday night, Trump invited Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to dinner at his Bedminster golf resort in New Jersey and raised the topic of impeachment. As I wrote about yesterday, Greene has been a driving factor behind the idea of an impeachment inquiry.
Trump has been beating the impeachment drum for some time and began issuing threats against those who wouldn’t act and warning against any long inquiry process. Last month, he wrote this to his followers on his platform Truth Social:
These lowlifes Impeached me TWICE (I WON!)), and Indicted me FOUR TIMES For NOTHING! Either IMPEACH the BUM, or fade into OBLIVION. THEY DID IT TO US!
With so much political pressure exerted by Trump, through his personal relationships with key GOP leaders like Stefanik and Greene and his threats to destroy any House GOP member who won’t bend the knee, it’s not hard to see why McCarthy was willing to abase himself and call for an illegal, unauthorized House impeachment inquiry.
To fail to act would be to defy their King, laws and rules and prior contrary statements be damned.
The McCarthy ego factor
My piece yesterday touched on this theme, but it bears repeating: Kevin McCarthy will do anything to stay in power. This is somewhat puzzling, given how unhappy he appears to be in the job and how powerless he actually is over his own caucus.
He is facing attacks from the right, most notably from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), for failing to live up to the many promises he made in exchange for their support of his speakership. Some already revolted openly against House leadership unless McCarthy could provide assurances that their demands would be met, grinding all legislation to a halt earlier this summer.
One of those demands is impeachment of Biden. His call for an inquiry didn’t cut it with Gaetz, who shortly after the announcement took to the House floor to threaten a motion to vacate the chair. Gaetz, however, does not appear to have the support of enough Democrats and rebel Republicans to actually unseat McCarthy. Several Democrats have indicated they would support McCarthy over more extreme options, should it come to that, so Gaetz appears to be losing his leverage quickly.
The impeachment inquiry, taken without a House vote that McCarthy would surely lose, amounts to little more than a punt on the issue. It creates a Potemkin Village of an inquiry: all for show with no substance. Such an inquiry would have no real power to actually do anything, not even issue basic congressional subpoenas.
McCarthy is effectively buying time on this issue while trying to mollify Trump because he knows a more pressing matter is now fully upon him. The government runs out of money to pay millions of federal employees at the end of the month and will have to shut down unless there is a continuing resolution, or by some miracle 11 more appropriations bills are passed by the House, agreed to by the Senate, and signed into law. If McCarthy gives into the demands of the Freedom Caucus, there will be no budget and the government will shut down. But if he goes once again to the Democrats for help, his right flank could call for his head.
It’s a terrible spot to be in, but McCarthy really enjoys pretending he is a true speaker, and not one in name only. Nothing else really matters to him but the trappings of power, even if they are illusory.
How long until McCarthy figures out that he can only become a true Speaker if he can shut down the noise and threats coming from the right and work across the aisle to actually get things done?
Sadly, it may be quite late for any such leadership, now that his bogus impeachment drive has angered the very Democrats who were his only chance of doing that.
Meanwhile the media either doesn't know or doesn't care about any of this. At least last night, it was presented as totally normal. I'm sick to death of our lopsided media. They're putting us all in danger by normalizing all of this and speaking about President Biden like he's the one who's the real criminal. This is the worst season of the Twilight Zone ever.
As an American who would like to be heard (but nobody ever asks me, ever!), I would like to say enough of this frippery, Republicans! I am weary of your needless, mindless yowling! To paraphrase your own words, "Shut up and govern!" [I feel better now -- thank you]