In American history, only five sitting presidents have ever faced formal impeachment probes. The first was Andrew Johnson in 1868. The second came more than a century later, when the House launched a probe into Richard Nixon ahead of his resignation.
Twenty-five years later, Bill Clinton faced a formal impeachment inquiry, followed by Donald Trump, who faced his first impeachment probe in 2019.
And now incumbent President Joe Biden has joined this very small club.
In the runup to the vote on whether to authorize this impeachment inquiry, there were still some hopes that cooler heads would prevail. If only four House Republicans acknowledged reality, the effort would’ve failed, and Congress could’ve moved onto more legitimate efforts.
But in the end, literally every member of the House GOP conference voted to proceed with this truly ridiculous gambit, indifferent to the fact that Republicans haven’t managed to find any credible evidence of wrongdoing against their Democratic target.
So, what happens now?
For the most part, those who’ve followed the process won’t notice a lot of change. Republicans started the year looking for something incriminating to use against Biden, and House GOP leaders signed off on an impeachment inquiry in September. In the months that followed, three Republican-led congressional panels — the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees — continued to search for evidence, to no avail.
In the coming weeks and months, those same three committees will continue to try to uncover something, anything, to justify their anti-Biden crusade — except this time, they’ll have a formal authorization vote that they believe will give their investigation added legal weight in pursuit of assorted documents and records.
Of course, given that the far-right lawmakers have already obtained voluminous documents and records, none of which has bolstered their conspiracy theories, the party probably shouldn’t get their hopes up. In theory, as we’ve discussed, an impeachment inquiry doesn’t have to proceed beyond an investigatory phase. It’s at least possible that GOP members will eventually realize that moving forward with presidential impeachment without any evidence of wrongdoing is madness. But few genuinely believe that Republicans will walk away. They’ve taken these steps for a reason: The GOP started with a goal — impeach Biden, whether he’s done anything wrong or not — and it’s all but certain the party won’t be deterred in pursuit of its partisan objective. The next step will be the relevant committees drafting articles of impeachment against the president who’s committed no crimes. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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