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      Will Joe Biden be impeached? – podcast

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      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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      Hunter Biden’s lawyer criticizes charging decision as ‘bending to political pressure’ – as it happened

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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

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      Nancy Pelosi: Biden thinks Harris is best running mate ‘and that’s what matters’

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      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

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      Biden on Republican impeachment bid: ‘They want to shut down the government’

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      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

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      Impeaching Biden is a desperate Republican gamble that will backfire | Lloyd Green

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      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

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      Mitt Romney says he will not seek re-election as US senator – US politics live

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      From 4h agoUtah’s US Senator Mitt Romney, who as the Republican nominee lost the 2012 presidential election to incumbent Barack Obama, has announced that he won’t seek a second term. He told the Washington Post it was time for a new generation to “step up” and “shape the world they’re going to live in”.Romney twice voted to impeach Donald Trump and the 76-year-old told the Post that he believed a second term, which would take him into his 80s, would be “less productive” than his work now.More to follow. Here’s the report.
      Mitt Romney, the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in the 2020 impeachment trial, said he would not be seeking reelection as Utah senator. In an interview with the Washington Post, he offered harsh criticism of Joe Biden and his own party, which he said “is inclined to a populist demagogue message”.
      A day after House speaker Kevin McCarthy announced a long-shot attempt to impeach Joe Biden, it became clear that Donald Trump has been in discussions with influential House Republicans to push the effort. Trump was in contact with Elise Stefanik, the third most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, and far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene in the lead-up to McCarthy’s announcement.
      Attorneys for Hunter Biden filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump White House aide over his alleged role in publishing online a trove of emails and images obtained from one of Biden’s laptops.
      The White House sent a letter to US news outlets, urging them to “scrutinize House Republicans’ demonstrably false claims” surrounding their impeachment inquiry into Biden. The memo, which was sent by Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, and addressed to editorial leadership at media organizations.
      The federal judge overseeing Trump’s classified documents case issued a protective order pertaining to classified evidence in the case, according a court filing.
      In the Georgia election subversion case, Trump waived his right to seek a speedy trial, according to a court filing. The move is in line with efforts he has taken in other cases to delay proceedings until after the November 2024 election.
      Eugene Peltola Jr, the husband of the Democratic Alaska congresswoman Mary Sattler Peltola, has died in a plane accident, a spokesperson said.Read more:
      A delegation of top tech leaders including Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman convened in Washington on Wednesday for the first of nine meetings with US senators to discuss the rise of artificial intelligence and how it should be regulated.Billed as an “AI safety forum,” the closed door meeting was organized by the Democratic senator Chuck Schumer who called it “one of the most important conversations of the year”. The forum comes as the federal government explores new and existing avenues to regulate AI.“It will be a meeting unlike any other that we have seen in the Senate in a very long time, perhaps ever: a coming together of top voices in business, civil rights, defense, research, labor, the arts, all together, in one room, having a much-needed conversation about how Congress can tackle AI,” Schumer said when announcing the forum.Several AI experts and other industry leaders are also in attendance, at the listening sessions, including Bill Gates; the Motion Picture Association CEO, Charles Rivkin; the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt; the Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris; and Deborah Raji, a researcher at University of California, Berkeley.Some labor and civil liberties groups are also represented among the 22 attendees including Elizabeth Shuler, the president of the labor union AFL-CIO; Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers; Janet Murguía, the president of UnidosUS; and Maya Wiley, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights.While Schumer describes the meeting as “diverse”, the sessions have faced criticism for leaning heavily on the opinions of people who stand to benefit from AI technology. “Half of the people in the room represent industries that will profit off lax AI regulations,” said Caitlin Seeley George, a campaigns and managing director at Fight for the Future, a digital rights group.“People who are actually impacted by AI must have a seat at this table, including the vulnerable groups already being harmed by discriminatory use of AI right now,” George said. “Tech companies have been running the AI game long enough and we know where that takes us – biased algorithms that discriminate against Black and brown folks, immigrants, people with disabilities and other marginalized groups in banking, the job market, surveillance and policing.”Read more:As he steps away from the Senate, Mitt Romney is critical of both Democrats and Republicans.Here are some of the key quotes from his interview with the Washington Post at a glance:Romney, a vocal Trump critic, condemned the increasing shift to the extreme right in the Republican party, saying:
      It’s pretty clear that the party is inclined to a populist demagogue message.
      But he was also critical of Biden’s record:
      Biden is unable to lead on important matters and Trump is unwilling to lead on important matters.
      In what seemed to be a veiled dig at Biden and Trump’s age (80 and 77 respectively), Romney said he was stepping down to make way for a younger crop of leaders:
      He called for a new generation to ‘step up [and] shape the world they’re going to live in’.
      And Romney, who was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in the 2020 impeachment trial, said he worried that his party had veered too far right, and lost touch with young voters:
      I know that there are some in MAGA world who would like Republican rule, or authoritarian rule by Donald Trump. But I think they may be forgetting that the majority of people in America would not be voting for Donald J. Trump. The majority would probably be voting for the Democrats…
      Young people care about climate change…They care about things that the MAGA Republicans don’t care about.
      Attorneys for Hunter Biden filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump White House aide over his alleged role in publishing online a trove of emails and images obtained from one of Biden’s laptops.The 13-page suit, filed in federal court in California, accuses Ziegler of improperly “accessing, tampering with, manipulating, altering, copying and damaging computer data that they do not own” in violation of the state’s computer fraud laws.The lawsuit describes in detail how Ziegler and 10 additional unnamed defendants allegedly obtained data belonging to Hunter Biden and disseminated “tens of thousands of emails, thousands of photos, and dozens of videos and recordings” on the internet, ABC News reported.Ziegler, a former aide to White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, has emerged as one of the Biden family’s most outspoken critics. Navarro himself has been convicted of contempt of Congress after he refused to cooperate with an investigation of the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol.The suit reads:
      Garrett Ziegler is a zealot who has waged a sustained, unhinged and obsessed campaign against [Hunter Biden] and the entire Biden family for more than two years. While Defendant Ziegler is entitled to his extremist and counterfactual opinions, he has no right to engage in illegal activities to advance his right-wing agenda.
      Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has continued his running-against-Trump-but-not-really campaign with a speech at the former US president’s favourite Washington thinktank.The biotech entrepreneur, who made a splash at the first Republican debate last month, praised Trump several times during remarks at the America First Policy Institute, which spun out of the Trump administration. He also gave a shout out to Matt Gaetz, a congressman from Florida who endorsed Trump for 2024 and was among the guests.Ramaswamy declared his wildly unrealistic plan to slash a million government jobs if elected. In a turbo charged version of Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s “deconstruction of the administrative state”, he would reduce the federal employee headcount by 75%, rescind a majority of federal regulations and shut down government agencies including the Department of Education, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.The candidate theatrically tore down posters supposedly showing “myths” to reveal supposed “truths” about a president’s power to take such action – an argument rejected by legal experts. “Do we want incremental reform or do we want revolution?” the candidate asked.
      I stand on the side of a revival of those 1776 ideals, on the side of yes, we created a government accountable to the people, not the other way around.
      Democrats reacted to the plans with scorn. The Democratic National Committee said in a press release:
      Ramaswamy’s not the only MAGA Republican running for president who wants to gut support for federal law enforcement and public education as the GOP hopefuls continue racing to be the most extreme candidate in the field.
      Here’s more from that Washington Post interview with Mitt Romney, in which the Republican Utah senator announced he would seek reelection in 2024.Asked how he sees a 2024 election rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Romney said “it could go either way” but that “so much can happen between now and then”. He added that talk by the centrist group No Labels of mounting a third party candidacy would be a mistake and only help to reelect Trump.Romney said he doubted the criminal charges pending against Trump, saying he believe people “don’t respond to old news”. Instead, he believed the investigation of Hunter Biden has the potential for political impact that could harm the president.Former vice president Mike Pence, who has been campaigning in Iowa, was forced to backtrack on earlier comments after House speaker Kevin McCarthy announced he would open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden without a floor vote.On Monday, Pence said he did not think an impeachment inquiry should “ever” be started unilaterally, as he praised McCarthy because he made it clear that if there is to be an impeachment inquiry, he would submit that to a vote on the floor of the Congress”, NBC reported.Less than two days after he made those comments, Pence told a reporter he would have “preferred” a vote on an inquiry but would defer to House Republicans, the Hill reported. He said:
      I want to respect Speaker McCarthy’s authority and decision to be able to initiate an impeachment inquiry. The American people have a right to know whether or not President Biden or his family personally profited during his time serving as Vice President.
      Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the US House, announced on Tuesday he is launching a formal impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden – despite resistance from Republicans in the House and Senate, where an impeachment vote would almost certainly fail.The order comes as McCarthy faces mounting pressure from some far-right members of his chamber, 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.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.McCarthy said during a brief press conference at the US Capitol on Tuesday:
      These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption. And they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives.
      Many of the allegations center on the president’s son, 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.McCarthy previously indicated an impeachment inquiry “would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person”, in a statement to rightwing Breitbart News earlier this month. But he declared the launch of an impeachment probe just a week and a half later, without a House floor vote, which likely means he does not have the support.GOP presidential hopeful Mike Pence was heckled during a campaign stop in Iowa earlier this week by a man who yelled:
      Get the fuck out of our country and the fuck out of Iowa!
      “Thank you,” the former vice president responded, before addressing the others in attendance.
      I’m going to put him down as a ‘maybe’.
      Utah Republican senator Mitt Romney is the sixth incumbent senator to announce plans to retire after the end of the term in 2025, AP reported.He joins Republican senator Mike Braun of Indiana, as well as Democrats Tom Carper of Delaware, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Dianne Feinstein of California and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.Romney, who ran as the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee, became the first US senator in history to vote to convict a president of their own party in an impeachment trial. He was the only Republican to vote against Donald Trump in his first impeachment and one of seven to vote to convict him in the second. Romney has also been an outspoken critic of Joe Biden.Romney’s decision to retire effectively surrenders his senate seat to a GOP successor who could be more closely aligned with Trump and the hardline conservative politics of Utah’s other senator, Mike Lee, Reuters reported.Utah senator Mitt Romney, who told the Washington Post he will not be seeking reelection in 2024, also announced his intentions in a video statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.Romney, a former Republican presidential candidate and governor of Massachusetts, said it was “time for a new generation of leaders”.The 76-year-old said:
      At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-80s. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders. They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.
      Romney said neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump are leading their parties to confront issues on deficits and debt, and took aim at Trump for calling global warming “a hoax”.
      The next generation of leaders must take America to the next stage of global leadership. While I’m not running for re election, I’m not retiring from the fight. I’ll be your United States senator until January of 2025. I will keep working on these and other issues and I’ll advance our state’s numerous priorities. I look forward to working with you and with folks across our state and nation in that endeavour. It really is a profound honour to serve Utah and the country. More

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      The Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Biden is laughably cynical | Moira Donegan

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      When the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, announced an impeachment inquiry into President Biden on Tuesday, he subverted the normal procedures for doing so. Typically, the House would have to vote on whether to open an informal impeachment investigation: McCarthy just announced it, unilaterally, calling a press conference to say he was “instructing” the House to open such an inquiry.Maybe the procedures don’t matter, as the optics, more than the substance, seem to be the point of the impeachment. Faced with electoral prospects that have been deeply compromised by the massive political backlash following the reversal of Roe v Wade and the almost comically superlative corruption of the likely Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump – who has now been criminally indicted four times – Republicans need to create a stench around Biden comparable to the one that follows Trump, and increasingly all the other candidates who appear with an R next to their names on the ballot. The impeachment inquiry, then, can be understood as congressional Republicans’ effort, ahead of the 2024 election, to throw a stink bomb.Another appropriate metaphor might be herding cats. McCarthy’s announcement of an impeachment inquiry came as far-right members of his coalition in the so-called House freedom caucus – most visibly Matt Gaetz of Florida, the congressman who was investigated for sex trafficking of minors but ultimately not charged – have increasingly made it clear that such an inquiry will be a precondition of their cooperation in upcoming budget negotiations that threaten to shut down the federal government at the end of the month.With the cooperation and guidance of Trump, these members have held the budget hostage in order to demand an inquiry – and, thanks to rule changes that McCarthy had to make in order to secure the speakership after a humiliating 15 rounds of leadership votes, the far right is able to threaten his own position, too. The impeachment inquiry, then, is the result of a weak speaker who cannot control his caucus, presiding over a deeply divided party that is in thrall to a vindictive and chaotic right flank. McCarthy looks a bit like a circus monkey, dancing on command: it’s the only way he can keep his job.But what exactly do House Republicans intend to impeach Joe Biden for? It’s not clear. House investigations into Biden have been ongoing for the past nine months, since Republicans took a narrow majority in the chamber, and so far they have not uncovered any notable misconduct by the president.The accusations against Biden are imprecise: it is noted that his son Hunter had some business dealings that seem unsavory, and that Biden may have been merged on to a call regarding one of these, though it’s not clear exactly what Republicans accuse him of doing on the call. Hunter Biden had a laptop with embarrassing material on it, and this is also supposed to indicate corruption on the part of the president, though Republicans never point to what the laptop specifically revealed about Biden himself.When pressed, sometimes Republicans will say that it is their own inquiries which have been targeted with wrongdoing, accusing Biden of interfering in investigations of his son. But this claim, too, has been discredited.At the press conference designed to maximize attention to the inquiry, McCarthy said that the House’s investigations, though they had turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden himself, had “painted a picture of a culture of corruption” around the Biden family. This is what the House’s new impeachment inquiry into Biden amounts to: not an actual accusation of malfeasance by the president so much as a supposedly very serious investigation of a bad vibe.Biden’s great crime, if he can be said to have committed one, is in having fathered a sleazeball. Hunter Biden has long been beset by addictions and self-destructive behaviors that he has not been willing or able to confront. He is accused of misdemeanor tax violations; once, when filling out a background check form to buy a handgun, he was asked whether he did drugs, and said no when the answer was yes. He fathered a child in Arkansas with a woman he then denied knowing, and sought to keep from having to acknowledge paternity; a DNA test proved the little girl was his daughter. His laptop was filled with pictures of him doing drugs and having sex, images which the right has gleefully published in acts of politically motivated revenge porn.Like a lot of famous men’s sons, Hunter seems content to make money by trading on his family name rather than cultivating his own talents. None of this reflects well on him. But none of it is particularly unique, either. Much of Hunter Biden’s poor character could also fairly be attributed to other children of privilege, other scions of the idle rich – including not a few Republican members of Congress.But it is Joe Biden, not Hunter, who is running for president, and it is Biden, not Hunter, whom the Republicans are truly eager to hurt. The new impeachment inquiry will give House Republicans subpoena power and an excuse to pursue their political agenda against Biden without any need for a pretext of legislative business.It will be a cudgel used to try and create the false impression that Biden’s misdeeds, if any, are equal to Trump’s, something like a re-do of the tedious and ultimately disastrous Hillary Clinton email server faux-controversy. Both federal law enforcement and the political media fell for that trick hook, line and sinker in 2016, allowing their desire to appear impartial to supersede their obligation to tell the truth.We don’t have to do that this time. This time, we can say the facts as they are plain: that Donald Trump is a singularly corrupt figure, that the Republican party is controlled by extremists, and that this new impeachment effort is an inquiry in search of a subject, a pretext and a fishing expedition. There simply is no equivalence between the ways that Trump routinely abuses his power and the misdeeds of any other politician. No number of press conferences will change that.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Why are Republicans launching Biden impeachment inquiry and what’s next?

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      Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the US House, announced on Tuesday he is launching a formal impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden – despite resistance from Republicans in the House and Senate, where an impeachment vote would almost certainly fail.The order comes as McCarthy faces mounting pressure from some far-right members of his chamber, 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.Here’s what you need to know.Why is McCarthy launching the impeachment inquiry?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.“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption. And they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” McCarthy said during a brief press conference at the US Capitol on Tuesday.Many of the allegations center on the president’s son, 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.McCarthy previously indicated an impeachment inquiry “would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person”, in a statement to rightwing Breitbart News earlier this month. But he declared the launch of an impeachment probe just a week and a half later, without a House floor vote, which likely means he does not have the support.What happens now?McCarthy has directed the chairs of three House committees – judiciary, oversight and ways and means – to lead the impeachment probe.Each of the committees have held hearings related to alleged crimes committed by the Biden family, and the chairs earlier launched a joint investigation into the Department of Justice claiming “misconduct” in its investigation of Hunter Biden for tax evasion and illegally possessing a gun.The White House sent a letter to news outlets on Wednesday urging members of the media to ramp up scrutiny of House Republicans’ “demonstrably false claims”.Where do the Republican investigations into Biden stand?After months of investigations, Republicans have failed to produce evidence that President Biden committed any crimes, according to the White House, which on Tuesday called the impeachment inquiry “extreme politics at its worst”.A watchdog group found that the house oversight committee investigation into Biden’s family, led by its chair, James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, has been “eight months of abject failure”. Comer overhyped allegations of bribery and corruption without evidence, according to a report by the Congressional Integrity Project released Monday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDo all Republicans support impeachment?Republicans in the House are split over the impeachment inquiry, with some supporting McCarthy’s decision with others publicly expressing their opposition.Don Bacon of Nebraska said on Tuesday he opposed the impeachment inquiry, saying McCarthy should hold a vote because there is currently no evidence suggesting Biden committed a crime.Ken Buck of Colorado, a member of the House freedom caucus, said in an interview on MSNBC days before McCarthy ordered the impeachment inquiry that “evidence linking President Biden to a high crime or misdemeanor … doesn’t exist right now”.Buck’s statement clashes with those of Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a fellow freedom caucus member who has trumpeted an impeachment vote, and of Matt Gaetz of Florida, who called the impeachment inquiry a “baby step”.Donald Trump has also been outspoken about impeaching Biden and reportedly supported Republican impeachment efforts from behind the scenes ahead of McCarthy’s announcement.Senate Republicans remained largely ambivalent on whether they supported the House’s impeachment inquiry, according to Politico, with some saying they hoped it would help McCarthy secure enough votes to avoid a government shutdown.Is impeachment likely to prevail?It’s unlikely. Impeachment would require a simple majority vote in the House, where it would likely struggle to garner enough support, before it went to the Senate.The Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority, requires a two-thirds vote to convict. More