Evelyn Reynolds

Despite an apparent lack of evidence that Joe Biden profited from the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, announced on Tuesday that he was launching a formal impeachment inquiry into the president.
Many suspect he was pushed to make the move to appease some far-right members of the Republican party, who have threatened to tank his deal to avert a government shutdown by the end of the month if he does not meet their list of demands.
So, will Joe Biden be impeached? Is this just an act of political revenge for Donald Trump? Could it end up backfiring on McCarthy? Jonathan Freedland speaks to Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post about what happens next

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Wisconsin’s top elections official suffered another blow on Thursday when the Republican-controlled state senate voted to fire her by a party line vote of 22 to 11. Meagan Wolfe’s status as elections administrator will now likely be determined in court.Legal experts and the Wisconsin attorney general have disputed the move by Republican senators to remove Wolfe, a respected and accomplished non-partisan leader. Her removal would affect the administration of elections in 2024 and illustrates the increasingly wide reach of election deniers and rightwing conspiracy theorists in Wisconsin politics.Before she became a lightning rod for conspiracy theories and criticism surrounding the 2020 election, Wolfe enjoyed wide support from Republicans in the state legislature. Appointed to head the Wisconsin elections commission in 2018, she was confirmed by a unanimous vote in the state senate in 2019.When the Covid-19 virus pummeled Wisconsin, disrupting elections, an attorney representing the Republican assembly speaker, Robin Vos, and the former senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a letter that they “wholeheartedly support” many protocols outlined by the statewide commission.Crucially, Wolfe, who provides expertise and recommendations to the commission, serves at their direction – and not the other way around.One pandemic-era policy that has come under fire by Republicans, creating temporary adjustments to nursing home voting, was issued by a unanimous vote of the three Democratic and three Republican commissioners.“Meagan is being blamed for the decisions of her commission,” said Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of Milwaukee’s election commission. “It’s really unfortunate that she’s being used as the scapegoat when she was not the person responsible for making any decisions that they’re punishing her for.”It was only after the 2020 election, which Donald Trump lost to president Joe Biden by just over 20,000 votes in Wisconsin, that complaints about the nonpartisan administrator began to circulate. Groups and individuals that spread falsehoods about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election have obsessed over Wolfe, publishing missives in Gateway Pundit, a site that peddles misinformation, and earning a warning from state capitol police for allegedly stalking her.State lawmakers, largely focusing their criticisms on pandemic-related policies like the expanded use of ballot drop boxes and the guidance for nursing home voting, joined the chorus calling for Wolfe’s ouster.When Wolfe’s term ended in June, Democrats on the bipartisan commission blocked a vote to send a recommendation for her reappointment to the state senate, anticipating the senate would in turn vote to fire her. The commissioners relied on precedent from a 2022 Wisconsin supreme court ruling that found a Republican member of the state’s natural resources board who declined to put himself forward for reappointment in 2021 could not be removed from office.Still, Republicans moved forward with reappointment proceedings for Wolfe, holding a 29 August hearing where election deniers and conspiracy theorists from around the state gathered to air their grievances about Wisconsin elections. In a letter, the Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, wrote that the state senate had “no current authority to confirm or reject the appointment of a WEC administrator”, an opinion that was echoed by the legislature’s own nonpartisan attorneys.Jeff Smith, a Democratic state senator on the shared revenue, elections and consumer protection committee who abstained from a committee vote on Wolfe’s reappointment, said in a statement that the vote was “not properly before the Senate or its committees”, adding that he has “full confidence in Administrator Wolfe and the work that she has done for the people of Wisconsin”.Devin LeMahieu, the Republican state senate majority leader who voted against Wolfe’s reappointment, previously accused the administrator of “mishandling” the 2020 election. LeMahieu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.During the floor session on Thursday, the Democratic senate minority leader, Melissa Agard, described the move to oust Wolfe as one of many “shameless continued attacks on our elections”.Democrats in the state senate objected to the vote repeatedly. Mark Spreitzer, a Democratic member of the senate’s shared revenue, elections and consumer protection committee, called the nomination “fake” and accused Republicans in the senate of indulging conspiracy theorists.Senators opposing the vote noted the wide-ranging implications of Wolfe’s disputed reappointment process.“Disenfranchisement was real,” said the Democratic state senator Lena Taylor, describing the long lines that plagued polling places in Milwaukee during the spring 2020 election. Taylor argued that the vote – which she described as a “sham process” – would delegitimate sincere elections concerns in favor of falsehoods and conspiracy theories.LeMahieu disputed Democrats’ opposition to the process, instead blaming Democrats on the elections commission for blocking the commission from advancing Wolfe’s nomination to the senate. The Thursday vote, LeMahieu said, “represents the lack of faith” in Wisconsin elections, sidestepping claims that the process would embolden conspiracy theorists.Elections officials in Wisconsin worry the ongoing proceedings will fuel more misinformation about elections and say their work will be negatively impacted if Wolfe leaves her position or is removed from office.“We’re already dealing with extra public records requests that are coming through in regards to elections,” said Kaci Lundgren, a Douglas county clerk. “Laws change all the time in regards to elections, so to have that experience and that knowledge gone, it would be disconcerting, it would be difficult. Frustrating.”Woodall-Vogg agreed, describing the possible vacancy as “a major blow”. The Milwaukee official added that a disruption in leadership would likely impact the staff of the elections commission, who provide technical assistance to clerks across the state. “I think what is most disappointing is that they’re bringing a nonpartisan election official and making her position very political.”Shortly after the vote Thursday, Kaul announced he had filed a lawsuit against Republican leaders, seeking to keep Wolfe in her job.“The story today is not what the senate has purported to do with its vote,” he said in a press release. “It’s that the senate has blatantly disregarded state law in order to put its full stamp of approval on the ongoing baseless attacks on our democracy.”Addressing reporters Thursday afternoon, Wolfe said she would remain in her position until a court said otherwise. She said Republicans sought to oust her because “I will not bend to political pressure”.“The senate’s vote today to remove me is not a referendum on the job I do, but rather a reaction to not achieving the political outcome they desire,” she said. “The political outcome they desired, I believe is to get rid of me. The reason they want to get rid of me for political purposes is because I will not bend to political pressure.”She also expressed some disbelief that many of the claims that her office had repeatedly debunked continued to circulate in front of the legislature and were relied on as a basis for trying to remove her.“It is sometimes hard to wrap my head around how we still are here,” she said.
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From 2h agoHunter Biden’s lawyer has responded to the indictment, releasing a statement that said special counsel David Weiss’ “bending to political pressure presents a grave threat to our system of justice”.The statement by Abbe Lowell, reported by NBC News, says:
As expected, prosecutors filed charges today that they deemed were not warranted just six weeks ago following a five-year investigation into this case.
The evidence in this matter has not changed in the last six weeks, but the law has and so has Maga Republicans’ improper and partisan interference in this process. Hunter Biden possessing an unloaded gun for 11 day was not a threat to public safety, but a prosecutor, with all the power imaginable, bending to political pressure presents a grave threat to our system of justice.
He added:
We believe these charges are barred by the agreement the prosecutors made with Mr Biden, the recent rulings by several federal courts that this statute is unconstitutional, and the facts that he did not violate that law, and we plan to demonstrate all of that in court.
Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
Federal prosecutors indicted Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, over illegally possessing a firearm in Delaware. The indictment comes a month after the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed the US attorney David Weiss, a Trump nominee, to oversee the investigation as special counsel. Hunter Biden could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
The charges against Hunter Biden come in the same week as House Republicans formally opened an impeachment inquiry into the president, seeking to tie Joe Biden to his son’s business dealings. James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee leading the Republican charge for the inquiry, said the charges against Hunter Biden are “a very small start”.
Joe Biden has said Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry against him because “they want to shut down the government”.
A Georgia judge has ruled that Donald Trump and 16 others will be tried separately from two defendants, lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, who are set to go to trial next month in the case accusing them of participating in an illegal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, had been pushing to try all 19 defendants together.
Mark Meadows, the former Trump White House chief of staff, withdrew his motion for an emergency stay in proceedings against him in the Fulton county court. Meadows had requested to transfer his Georgia 2020 election interference case from state to federal court on the basis that some of the charged conduct was within the scope of his official duties.
Nancy Pelosi seemed to offer a less-than-ringing endorsement when asked if Kamala Harris was the best running mate for Joe Biden next year, saying: “He thinks so, and that’s what matters.” Pelosi, however, spoke glowingly of her fellow Californian’s political skills.
Donald Trump said Joe Biden is “not too old at all” to be president but that he was “grossly incompetent”. In an interview with Megyn Kelly, the former president also said he didn’t know who gave top infectious disease official Anthony Fauci a presidential commendation – despite the fact that it was him.
Read more:Trump impeachment: Trump seeks to divert attention from his impeachment inquiry towards Hunter’s business dealings in China and Ukraine.2020 presidential election: Trump repeatedly attacks Joe Biden over his family’s overseas business ties.December 2020: A month after his father wins the presidential election, Hunter confirms a Delaware attorney has been investigating his “tax affairs”. He says he had learned of the investigation, overseen by Trump-appointed US attorney David Weiss, from his lawyer a day before he confirmed it publicly. The investigation had been temporarily paused in the months leading up to the election.April 2023: An anonymous IRS whistleblower sends a letter to Congress saying the investigation into Hunter’s finances was mishandled.20 June 2023: Hunter is expected to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors after a federal court in Delaware announced it had reached a deal that was set to shield him from jail time over gun charges in a separate case.19 July 2023: Two former agents at the IRS, including the previously anonymous whistleblower, testify at a GOP-lead House oversight hearing that DoJ officials “constantly hamstrung, limited and marginalized” the US attorney, Weiss, in his investigation into Hunter.26 July 2023: In a reversal, Hunter pleads not guilty to two tax misdemeanor charges after the judge, Maryellen Noreika, says she cannot accept the deal over a disagreement between the prosecution and Hunter’s legal team.The two sides settled a disagreement over whether Hunter could face future charges for violating foreign lobbying laws. After a short recess, his lawyers said they agreed with the DoJ’s interpretation that he could face additional charges, subject to further investigation.But Noreika again raises a question regarding a diversion agreement – where the prosecutor agrees to dismiss charges, with conditions – that would have cleared Hunter of his gun charges after two years if she found him to be compliant with the terms. Noreika said that power belonged to the DoJ, not her, and thus could not approve the deal.August 2023: This is the deadline Noreika sets for the two sides to file additional briefs defending the constitutionality of the original plea deal.Republican lawmakers are separately targeting the entire Biden family. The GOP-led House oversight committee is investigating whether the family’s business dealings harm US national security, and some extreme members are calling for impeachment.11 August 2023: Merrick Garland, the attorney general, appoints special counsel David Weiss to oversee Hunter’s case.14 September 2023: Hunter Biden is federally indicted with three felony counts, for illegally possessing a gun and making false statements when filling out paperwork to do so in 2018.Read more:In Wisconsin, Democratic attorney general Josh Kaul announced he had filed a lawsuit against Republican leaders, over the ousting of nonpartisan elections administrator Meagan Wolfe.Wolfe became lightning rod for conspiracy theories during the 2020 elections. Groups and individuals that spread falsehoods about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election obsessed over Wolfe, publishing missives in Gateway Pundit, a site that peddles misinformation and earning a warning from state capitol police for allegedly stalking her.State lawmakers, largely focusing their criticisms on pandemic-related policies like the expanded use of ballot drop boxes and the guidance for nursing home voting, joined the chorus calling for Wolfe’s ouster.“The story today is not what the senate has purported to do with its vote,” he said in a press release. “It’s that the senate has blatantly disregarded state law in order to put its full stamp of approval on the ongoing baseless attacks on our democracy.”Read more:Hunter Biden’s lawyer has responded to the indictment, releasing a statement that said special counsel David Weiss’ “bending to political pressure presents a grave threat to our system of justice”.The statement by Abbe Lowell, reported by NBC News, says:
As expected, prosecutors filed charges today that they deemed were not warranted just six weeks ago following a five-year investigation into this case.
The evidence in this matter has not changed in the last six weeks, but the law has and so has Maga Republicans’ improper and partisan interference in this process. Hunter Biden possessing an unloaded gun for 11 day was not a threat to public safety, but a prosecutor, with all the power imaginable, bending to political pressure presents a grave threat to our system of justice.
He added:
We believe these charges are barred by the agreement the prosecutors made with Mr Biden, the recent rulings by several federal courts that this statute is unconstitutional, and the facts that he did not violate that law, and we plan to demonstrate all of that in court.
At least half a dozen House Republicans say they are open to supporting a motion to oust the speaker, Kevin McCarthy, in the event of a floor vote, according to a CNN report. The topic has come up in recent House Freedom caucus meetings, with some members feeling like McCarthy violated his terms to become speaker, the report says. It writes:
If all Democrats support the move, as many of them are signaling they would, it would take just five Republicans to succeed, thrusting the House into chaos. At that point, the House would be paralyzed until a new speaker is elected.
The Republican Florida congressman Matt Gaetz dismissed the indictment of Hunter Biden, comparing it to charging the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer with littering.Hunter Biden has been charged by federal prosecutors with lying about his drug use when he bought a gun in 2018, in the same week as House Republicans formally opened an impeachment inquiry into the president, seeking to tie Joe Biden to his son’s business dealings.A court filing in the US district court in Delaware alleged Biden, 53, illegally obtained and possessed a Colt revolver in October 2018 after falsely declaring that he was not a user of, or addicted to, narcotic drugs. He has been charged with two counts of making false statements by checking a box falsely saying he was not a user of or addicted to drugs and a third count for possessing the gun as a drug user.The firearms indictment comes weeks after a plea deal collapsed that would have ensured Hunter Biden would avoid a criminal trial as his father runs for reelection for the 2024 presidential election.On Tuesday, House speaker Kevin McCarthy announced he is launching a formal impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. According to McCarthy, findings from Republican-led investigations over the summer recess revealed “a culture of corruption”, and that Biden lied about his lack of involvement and knowledge of his family’s overseas business dealings.Many of the allegations center on Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, during his father’s term as vice-president. Republicans allege that Joe Biden improperly benefited from his son’s foreign connections but, after several months, have produced no evidence. Watchdog groups say Republicans do not actually have evidence to back up their claims.By a party-line vote, the Republican-dominated Wisconsin state senate has voted to oust the state’s top elections official, Meagan Wolfe.The move advances the goal of election deniers and conspiracy theorists who falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen by Joe Biden. It’s the latest example of Wisconsin politicians repeatedly revisiting the 2020 election, despite the fact that numerous recounts and reviews of the last presidential election in Wisconsin affirmed Biden’s victory over former president Donald Trump.Josh Kaul, the Wisconsin attorney general, objected to the proceedings, which Republicans in the Senate advanced despite the bipartisan commission failing to put forward Wolfe’s recommendation to the legislature. Nonpartisan attorneys agreed with Kaul’s legal objection and the status of Wolfe’s position will almost certainly be decided in court.During the floor session, the Democratic senator Mark Spreitzer, who serves on the shared revenue, elections and consumer protection committee called the nomination “fake”, and accused Republicans in the senate of indulging conspiracy theorists by “relitigat[ing] the 2020 election”.Elections observers worry the move will damage voters’ confidence in Wisconsin elections. And if Wolfe is removed or steps down, her vacancy will impact elections clerks around the state who rely on her office’s guidance during elections.James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee leading the Republican charge for an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, said today’s charges against the president son, Hunter Biden, are “a very small start”.Posting to X, formerly known as Twitter, Comer wrote:
Unless U.S. Attorney [David] Weiss investigates everyone involved in the fraud schemes and influence peddling, it will be clear President Biden’s DOJ is protecting Hunter Biden and the big guy.
Federal prosecutors indicted Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, over illegally possessing a firearm in Delaware on Thursday. The indictment comes a month after the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed the US attorney David Weiss, a Trump nominee, to oversee the investigation as special counsel.Hunter Biden has been at the center of a years-long investigation into his tax affairs that was set to close with a guilty plea. But that plea deal fell apart at a Delaware courthouse after the Trump-appointed judge said she could not agree to the agreement, which ensured Biden would avoid jail time in a separate case of illegally possessing a gun while using drugs.Amid the controversy, the president has repeatedly said he supports his son and Hunter has been seen regularly at family events. Asked if President Biden would pardon his son in the event of any conviction, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters: “No.”But the younger Biden has been embroiled in a list of unrelated controversies for years, including his overseas dealings and struggles with addiction, which ex-President Trump and his allies have regularly sought to use as fodder for attacks.Here’s a comprehensive timeline of the moments that have propelled Hunter Biden into the limelight.Hunter Biden has been charged with three counts: two counts of making false statements by checking a box falsely saying he was not a user of or addicted to drugs and of illegally possessing the gun as a drug user, and one count for possessing the gun as a drug user.Two counts are punishable by up to 10 years in prison while the third carries up to five years in prison, upon conviction, AP reported.Hunter Biden has also been under investigation for his business dealings. The special counsel overseeing the case has indicated that charges of failure to pay taxes on time could be filed in Washington or in California, where he lives.Republican reactions to Hunter Biden’s indictment are starting to emerge online, with far-right Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene asking:“But where are the indictments for tax fraud, FARA abuse, money laundering, and sex trafficking???”FARA refers to the Foreign Agents Registration Act which requires individuals who engage in specified activities within the US on behalf of a foreign principal to register with and disclose those activities to the justice department.Hunter Biden has drawn ire as a result of his overseas business dealings involving countries including Ukraine and China.Hunter Biden has been indicted by federal prosecutors on three criminal counts on firearm possession, according to court documents.The indictment was filed at the US district court in Delaware on Thursday and charges President Joe Biden’s 53-year-old son with unlawfully possessing a firearm as a drug addict.
“Robert Hunter Biden, provided a written statement on Form 4473 certifying he was not an unlawful user of, and addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, and any other controlled substance, when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious,” the indictment said.
The indictment brought special counsel David Weiss follows the collapse of a plea deal for Hunter Biden in July that would have seen him plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and register in a program that would avoid prosecution on a gun-related charge.During the interview between Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump, they discussed the question Kelly asked Trump in 2015 during the Republican primary debate in which Kelly asked:“You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”Recalling the question, Trump said, “That was a badd question.”Kelly replied, “That was a great question,” to which Trump said, “That was a nasty question.”Trump continued to defend his 2015 answer to the question (“Only Rosie O’Donnell”) and said, “I came up with a good answer.”Mark Meadows, the former Trump White House chief of staff, has withdrawn his motion for an emergency stay in proceedings against him in the Fulton county court.Meadows had requested to transfer his Georgia 2020 election interference case from state to federal court on the basis that some of the charged conduct was within the scope of his official duties.From Politico’s Kyle Cheney:Joe Biden has said Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry against him because “they want to shut down the government”.Without agreement on new funding by 30 September, the federal government will at least partly shut down. Hard-right Republicans are demanding cuts to some spending and increases in other areas, particularly immigration enforcement. Some made an impeachment inquiry – regarding the business affairs of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and unsubstantiated allegations of corruption involving Joe Biden – a condition of support for keeping the government open.Given he must run the House with just a five-seat majority, the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is at the mercy of such pressure.With more than five Republicans having expressed skepticism about whether impeachment would be merited, McCarthy skipped a vote on whether to open an inquiry.That followed the example of Nancy Pelosi, his Democratic predecessor, who did not hold a House vote before proceedings against Donald Trump began in 2019. Notably, it also opened McCarthy to accusations of hypocrisy, given that he excoriated Pelosi and told rightwing news outlets at the time that he would hold a vote.After an inquiry, impeachment must be voted on by the full House. A yes vote sends the president to the Senate for trial. A vote there decides if the president will be acquitted, or convicted and removed.Trump was impeached twice, first for seeking political dirt on the Biden family and others in Ukraine, then for inciting the January 6 attack on Congress. The second Trump impeachment was the most bipartisan in history, with 10 House Republicans voting to impeach and seven Republican senators voting to convict. But enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal to see Trump acquitted.The other impeached presidents – Andrew Johnson (1868) and Bill Clinton (1998) – also survived Senate trials. As Democrats now hold the Senate, the effort against Biden stands next to no chance of succeeding. More

Nancy Pelosi seemed to offer a less-than-ringing endorsement when asked if Kamala Harris was the best running mate for Joe Biden next year, saying: “He thinks so, and that’s what matters.”But the former US House speaker also had praise for the vice-president, telling CNN: “And, by the way, she’s very politically astute. I don’t think people give her enough credit. She’s … consistent with the president’s values and the rest.”As Biden knows after eight years under Barack Obama, the vice-presidency has never been easy to fill. Harris may or may not agree with John Nance Garner’s famous observation, that the job he did for Franklin D Roosevelt wasn’t worth “a pitcher of warm piss”, but she has experienced familiar trials.Speculation over her performance and possible replacement has been constant. In a deeply sourced new book about the Biden White House, the author Franklin Foer describes Harris’s struggles to define her role.Nor does Harris enjoy favourable polling. Her approval rating – like Biden’s – has long been stuck at around 40%.Biden is the oldest president ever elected and will turn 82 shortly after the 2024 election. In that light, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has been prominent among Republicans targeting Harris on the campaign trail. The prospect of a Harris presidency should “send a chill up every American’s spine”, Haley recently told Fox News.Pelosi, however, spoke glowingly of her fellow Californian’s political skills.“People shouldn’t underestimate what Kamala Harris brings to the table,” she told CNN. “People don’t understand. She’s politically astute. Why would she be vice-president if she were not? But when she was running for attorney general in California [in 2010], she had 6% in the polls … and she politically astutely made her case about why she would be good, did her politics, and became attorney general.”Harris became a US senator in 2016, then mounted a presidential campaign in 2020, showing strongly at Biden’s expense on the debate stage but dropping out before the first vote. Biden mended bridges and named Harris his running mate.“She’s the vice-president of the United States,” Pelosi said. “People say to me, ‘Well, why isn’t she doing this or that?’ I say: ‘Because she’s the vice-president.’ That’s the job description. You don’t do that much. You know, you’re a source of strength, inspiration, intellectual resource. I think she’s represented our country very well at home and abroad.”On Thursday morning, Pelosi told MSNBC: “The Biden-Harris team is our team. We’re very proud of it. And we’re all going to work very hard to make sure that they are re-elected.”Biden and Harris seem set to face a rematch with Donald Trump, if not with Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, who is challenging for the Republican nomination (and who on Wednesday said Biden advised him to “stay close to the president and build that relationship” after he and Trump won in 2016).skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPence’s stint as Trump’s vice-president ended with the January 6 riot, when Trump supporters sought Pence at the Capitol, chanting that he should be hanged.On Wednesday, Pence said that showed his stint as vice-president “didn’t end the way I wanted it to”.Pelosi told CNN Trump’s attempt to overturn the last election meant “nothing less is at stake than our democracy … you hear that in the country. You hear that globally. And we have to remove all doubt that our democracy is strong.”Last Sunday, Harris was asked if she was ready to step up as president.“Yes, I am, if necessary,” she told CBS. “But Joe Biden is going to be fine. And let me tell you something: I work with Joe Biden every day.” More

Joe Biden said Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry against him because “they want to shut down the government”.Biden was speaking at a campaign event in McLean, Virginia, on Wednesday, a day after the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, conceded to pressure from the right of his party and announced the inquiry.“I don’t know quite why, but they just knew they wanted to impeach me,” Biden said. “And now, the best I can tell, they want to impeach me because they want to shut down the government.”Without agreement on new funding by 30 September, the federal government will at least partially shut down. Hard-right Republicans are demanding cuts to some spending and increases in other areas, particularly immigration enforcement.Some made an impeachment inquiry – regarding the business affairs of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and unsubstantiated allegations of corruption involving Joe Biden – a condition of support for keeping the government open.Given he must run the House with just a five-seat majority, McCarthy is at the mercy of such pressure. With more than five Republicans having expressed skepticism about whether impeachment would be merited, the speaker skipped a vote on whether to open an inquiry.That followed the example of Nancy Pelosi, his Democratic predecessor, who did not hold a House vote before proceedings against Donald Trump began in 2019. But it also opened McCarthy to accusations of hypocrisy, given he excoriated Pelosi and recently told rightwing news outlets he would hold a vote.On Thursday, Pelosi told MSNBC: “Don’t blame it on me. Just take responsibility for what you were doing there, and don’t misrepresent the care that we took, the respect that we had for the institution to go forward in a way that really addressed the high crimes and misdemeanors of Donald Trump.”As spending bills remained in limbo, Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting to say tensions between McCarthy and the hard right had prompted some forthright language from the speaker.“If you want to file a motion to vacate, then file the fucking motion,” McCarthy said, according to Brian Mast of Florida.A motion to vacate would force a vote on whether McCarthy should stay in his role.McCarthy told reporters: “I showed frustration in here because I am frustrated. Frustrated with some people in the conference.”After an impeachment inquiry, the full House must vote on whether the president should be impeached. A yes vote sends the president to the Senate for trial. A vote there decides if the president will be acquitted, or convicted and removed.Trump was impeached twice, first for seeking political dirt on the Biden family and others in Ukraine, then for inciting the January 6 attack on Congress. The second Trump impeachment was the most bipartisan in history, with 10 House Republicans voting to impeach and seven Republican senators voting to convict. But enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal to see Trump acquitted.The other impeached presidents – Andrew Johnson (1868) and Bill Clinton (1998) – also survived Senate trials. As Democrats now hold the Senate, the effort against Biden stands next to no chance of succeeding.In an interview broadcast on Thursday, Trump told the SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly his impeachments were the key driver of Biden’s.“I think had they not done it to me … perhaps you wouldn’t have it being done to them. And this is going to happen with indictments, too,” Trump said.The former president faces 91 criminal charges under four indictments, for federal and state election subversion, retention of classified information and hush money payments. Denying wrongdoing, he claims political persecution.In Virginia, Biden said: “So look, look, I got a job to do. Everybody always asked about impeachment. I get up every day, not a joke, not focused on impeachment. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got to deal with the issues that affect the American people every single solitary day.”Nonetheless, the White House has reportedly spent more than a year setting up a war room to push back at Republican invective and seek to shape the media narrative as the impeachment process progresses.On Thursday, Biden’s spokesperson for oversight and investigations, Ian Sams, jumped on remarks by the California Republican Darrell Issa, a member of the House judiciary committee that will take part in the impeachment inquiry.“There has to be an aha moment,” Issa told CNN, adding: “The actual participation [in Hunter’s deals] by the vice-president and now president, that still has to be discovered and or nailed down.”Issa, Sams said, had admitted Republicans were on “an evidence-free wild goose chase”.CNN also spoke to Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a veteran House Republican. Amid widespread questions about how voters will see impeachment proceedings against Biden, Cole said he did not see the move “as good politics” by his party. More

Already in a footrace for re-election, Joe Biden now faces an unwelcome impeachment inquiry. Against the backdrop of a likely government shutdown, the US again stands to be buffeted by our deep and wide partisan divide. Practically speaking, however, he will survive. Conviction by the Senate is a mathematical impossibility.Democrats are in control and Senate Republicans are nowhere near being onboard. “It’s a waste of time,” as one anonymous Republican senator told the Hill. “It’s a fool’s errand.” Said differently, impeachment will scar all concerned – Republicans included.Already, Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, appears desperate and craven. “Maybe this is just Kevin giving people their binkie to get through the shutdown,” the same Republican senator remarked.Even so, Biden confronts rough political terrain. His numbers are underwater, and the US lacks confidence in his capacity to vanquish inflation. His age is a turn-off, too, rivaled only by the unpopularity of Kamala Harris, his running mate.Meanwhile, the indictment of Hunter Biden, the First Son, is a foregone conclusion, a matter of a few weeks not months. Some of the president’s past statements about his lack of nexus to Hunter and businesses do not withstand scrutiny, according to sworn statements. The Republican party possesses ammo.Hunter, in fact, did make money in China and Biden did meet with one of his associates. On top of it all, the president clings to his surviving son, inviting him to a state dinner and vacations with him. The psychodrama continues.Likewise, expect Peter Doocy of Fox News to remain parked at the pivot point between squeegee pest and human thorn. Just a reminder, it was Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post that stuck with the Hunter Biden laptop story. There was a “there” there after all.Yet, this is only the half of the story. Impeachment will likely pave the way for Republican overreach and stories aplenty of the speaker being inept and beholden to Republican jihadists. It might even cost him his job. The latest polls peg McCarthy’s favorability at minus 16.While the public has little love for Biden, the impeachment drive could well strike swing voters as a bridge too far. First, the inquiry appears to be legally defective. McCarthy embarked on this voyage without an authorization vote and that may be a big deal, one that rules out the prospect of compliance or assistance from Merrick Garland’s justice department.Perversely here, Biden may owe Donald Trump a “thank you” of sorts. Back in September 2019, House Democrats initially launched their impeachment without a vote. A month later, one followed. Then in January 2020, Trump’s justice department formally determined that without an authorization vote, impeachment inquiries lack legal teeth.The Department of Justice’s office of legal counsel opined: “The House of Representatives 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 in support of the House’s power of impeachment.”Unfortunately for Trump and his allies, the opinion remains on the books and binds the present administration. As a result, the justice department and the White House will be able to smile as they stiff-arm House Republicans.Then there is McCarthy’s growing credibility problem. Two weeks ago, he told Breitbart that he had the votes in hand. On 1 September 2023, Breitbart’s headlines screamed: “EXCLUSIVE – McCARTHY DETAILS IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY PROCESS: ‘IF WE MOVE FORWARD,’ IT ‘WOULD OCCUR THROUGH A VOTE’ ON THE HOUSE FLOOR.”Not anymore. Pressed about his prior commitment, McCarthy grew testy, telling CNN: “I never changed my position.”At the same time, he may be facilitating the end of the current House majority and, by extension, his gig as speaker. Just as abortion limited Republican gains in the midterms, impeachment will likely remind purple America of the Republican party’s capacity for excess and extremism – particularly if House Republicans impose a prolonged government shutdown.Warning lights flash. “I recommend … against [an impeachment] inquiry unless more evidence that directly connects to President [Biden] is found,” Don Bacon, a Republican congressman from Nebraska, has said. He is also “skeptical” that a vote to launch the inquiry would have succeeded.Meanwhile, McCarthy can’t even move a partisan defense bill forward and continues to catch incoming fire from the right. The emperor may be stark naked. On Wednesday night, Matt Gaetz labeled him “a sad and pathetic man who lies to hold on to power”.“Eventually, the lying has to come to an end and the votes are gonna start on a motion to vacate,” the Florida congressman explained.For his part, Andy Biggs has publicly attacked McCarthy for distracting from the budget fight. “I think the timing is interesting, don’t you?” the Arizona conservative hinted. “It might be seen by some as a deflection.”For that matter, “desperation” might be the better word. Even as McCarthy seeks to oust Biden, it is his own job that is now in jeopardy.
Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

A Georgia judge has ruled that Donald Trump and 16 others will be tried separately from two defendants who are set to go to trial next month in the case accusing them of participating in an illegal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro had filed demands for a speedy trial, and the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee had set their trial to begin on 23 October. Trump and other defendants had asked to be tried separately from Powell and Chesebro, with some saying they could not be ready by the late October trial date.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, last month obtained an indictment against Trump and the 18 others, charging them under the state’s anti-racketeering law in their efforts to deny Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over the Republican incumbent.Willis had been pushing to try all 19 defendants together, arguing that it would be more efficient and fairer. McAfee cited the tight timetable, among other issues, as a factor in his decision to separate Trump and 16 others from Powell and Chesebro.“The precarious ability of the court to safeguard each defendant’s due process rights and ensure adequate pre-trial preparation on the current accelerated track weighs heavily, if not decisively, in favor of severance,” McAfee wrote. He added that it might be necessary to further divide them into smaller groups for trial.The development is likely to be welcome news to other defendants looking to avoid being tied by prosecutors to Powell, who perhaps more than anyone else in the Trump camp was vocal about publicly pushing baseless conspiracy theories linking foreign governments to election interferences.Another defendant in the Atlanta case, Rudy Giuliani, has sought to distance himself from Powell and spoke at length about her in an interview with special counsel Jack Smith’s team in Washington, according to a person familiar with his account who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.Also, Trump-aligned lawyer Eric Herschmann, who in 2020 tried to push back against efforts to undo the election, told the congressional committee investigating the riot at the US Capitol on January 6 that he regarded Powell’s ideas as “nuts”.Chesebro and Powell had sought to be tried separately from each other, but the judge denied that request.Chesebro is accused of working on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. Powell is accused of participating in a breach of election equipment in rural Coffee county.The nearly 100-page indictment details dozens of alleged acts by Trump or his allies to undo his 2020 loss in Georgia, including suggesting the secretary of state, a Republican, could help find enough votes for Trump to win the battleground state; harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud; and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favorable to Trump.Further explaining his decision to separate the others from Powell and Chesebro, McAfee said he was skeptical of prosecutors’ arguments that trying all 19 defendants together would be more efficient. He noted that the Fulton county courthouse does not have a courtroom big enough to hold 19 defendants, their lawyers and others who would need to be present, and relocating to a bigger venue could raise security concerns.Prosecutors also had argued that because each defendant is charged under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or Rico Act, the state plans to call the same witnesses and present the same evidence for any trial in the case. They told the judge last week that they expect any trial would take four months, not including jury selection.But McAfee pointed out that each additional defendant increases the time needed for opening statements and closing arguments, cross-examination and evidentiary objections. “Thus, even if the state’s case remains identical in length, and the aggregate time invested by the court is increased, the burden on the jurors for each individual trial is lessened through shorter separate trials,” he wrote.The judge also noted that to satisfy the demands by Powell and Chesebro for a speedy trial, he will try to have a jury seated by 3 November. “With each additional defendant involved in the voir dire process, an already Herculean task becomes more unlikely,” he wrote.McAfee also pointed to the fact that five defendants are currently seeking to move their cases to federal court and litigation on that issue is ongoing. If they were to succeed midway through a trial in the state court, it is not clear what the impact would be, McAfee wrote. More

Breathless coverage of the presidential horserace has begun, and it seems all but inevitable: we’re heading towards a Trump-Biden rematch. Democrats need to maintain their razor-thin Senate majority if they hope to enact President Biden’s second-term agenda – or, God forbid, fend off Trump’s.That prospect hinges on a few incumbents facing tough re-election fights. The most critical, must-win seat belongs to Sherrod Brown, a senator from Ohio.The son of a doctor father and activist mother, Brown received his political education in union halls in the House district he was elected to represent at the age of 23, and has touted “the dignity of work” ever since. He refused to register for a congressional healthcare plan for his first 18 years in the US House of Representatives, waiting until everyday Americans had access to a federally subsidized plan, too. He opposed free-trade deals from Presidents Clinton and Obama and proudly called himself a “Labor Democrat” before unions were cool.Over three terms, Brown has maintained his record as, by one measure, the 12th most progressive member of the US Senate, even as his constituency has grown increasingly more conservative. Brown won a third term in 2018 by seven points in a state that voted for Trump by eight points in the election that came before and the one that came after.Despite decades in Washington, Brown still strikes Ohioans as not only likable, but familiar. He wears a canary pin on his lapel, given to him by a steelworker to commemorate the struggle for workers’ rights. He loves telling people he drives a Jeep Cherokee made in Toledo. He brags about his wife, the Pulitzer prize-winning writer Connie Schultz, and his rescue pups, named after Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the labor organizer Walter Reuther. It seems that every profile ever written describes Brown as “rumpled”, “authentic” or “gravelly-voiced”.Unlike his fellow Ohio senator, JD Vance, Brown does not just play a populist for the press. When GM shuttered its Lordstown, Ohio, plant in 2019, putting thousands of auto workers out of work, Brown called local UAW leaders immediately to help. More recently, he led efforts to expand union protections for Ohioans building electric vehicle batteries.And while Biden has taken heat for failing to visit East Palestine, Ohio, following the February 2023 train derailment that spewed hazardous toxins into the air and displaced thousands of residents, Brown has visited the town six times. He’s currently urging the White House and Fema to issue an emergency declaration to get residents recovery resources they desperately need.As one voter, a 56-year-old veteran who lives outside East Palestine, told the Washington Post: “He’s always around when something is going on.”That seems to be his MO on Capitol Hill, too. As chairman of the Senate banking committee, Brown has found issues that align his pro-worker philosophy with popular, timely policies – including some that are even palatable to his Republican colleagues. Since the East Palestine disaster, he has partnered with Vance on railroad safety legislation. He is also working with Senator Tim Scott to crack down on fentanyl traffickers and punish failed banking executives by the end of this term.If Brown’s legislative stock is high, his electoral stakes are even higher. Democrats have 23 Senate seats up for re-election, and – assuming the vice-president, Kamala Harris, is still there to break the tie – they can only lose one to keep their majority. Though Republican operatives in the state admit defeating Brown will be a “dogfight”, current polls have him up by just 0.4 percentage points over one possible opponent, the Ohio secretary of state, Frank LaRose. Both the Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball call his race a tossup.Joe Manchin’s slide to the dark side and Kyrsten Sinema’s wildcard ways leave Democrats no room for error. If Brown loses, and takes the Democratic Senate with him, democracy hangs in the balance. Republicans will be free to appoint extremist judges, and shut down the government if they don’t get their way. And that’s if Biden wins a second term. If he loses, the parade of horrors will be far, far worse.Unlike fellow endangered conservative-state Democrats like Manchin and the Montana senator Jon Tester, Brown’s record is uncompromising on abortion rights and gun safety. Recent elections have proved that these are winning issues. To capture and grow this coalition, Brown must win re-election.A fourth Brown term would also show Americans that this pro-union unicorn need not be so unique. Indeed, the Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman eked out his 2022 victory with a model similar to Brown’s: an unkempt, approachable guy from the rust belt who looks and talks like someone voters know.Sherrod Brown is democracy’s canary in the coalmine. If he goes down next year, the country won’t be far behind. Democrats in Ohio and across the country must turn out for Brown – at fundraisers, campaign events and at the ballot box.As we dive deeper into the 2024 election season, and the lunacy that will accompany the first presidential rematch since Eisenhower v Stevenson, the Democratic party must make re-electing Brown its highest priority.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation More