Republican talk about impeaching President Joe Biden had, by all appearances, run its course. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer did his best, spending more than a year searching desperately for evidence of wrongdoing, but the Kentucky congressman failed spectacularly, and even many of the Democrat’s fiercest GOP critics are moving on.
At least, they were. The Hill reported:
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) is prepping articles of impeachment against President Biden after he warned that the U.S. will stop supplying offensive weapons to Israel if its forces launch an invasion into Rafah. Mills, a first-year lawmaker, unveiled his impeachment resolution Thursday, which charges Biden with abuse of power, and he said he plans to “pursue action” Friday.
For those keeping score, there are now seven different GOP impeachment resolutions that target the president currently pending on Capitol Hill, none of which is likely to reach the House floor.
Mills’ measure came just hours after Republican Sen. Tom Cotton said Congress “has no choice but to impeach Biden.”
As the Republicans’ argument goes, the incumbent president said this week that the United States would not supply Israel with certain weapons and artillery shells if its military invades Rafah. To hear GOP officials tell it, this is an impeachable offense because … well, it’s a little complicated.
As best as I can tell, Mills and Cotton believe there’s a parallel between Biden’s policy and Donald Trump’s 2019 extortion scheme toward Ukraine, in which the Republican withheld security aid in the hopes of getting Ukraine to help him cheat in his 2020 re-election campaign. It’s the scandal that led to Trump’s first impeachment.
This is not, however, a serious argument, in large part because there’s nothing illegal about Biden’s policy, and he’s not trying to leverage security aid for campaign help.
What’s more, a White House official told The Hill that the GOP’s claims are “ridiculous,” adding, “Senior administration officials had already made multiple public statements about Rafah similar to the President’s, including that we are also ensuring Israel gets every dollar appropriated in the supplemental. Trump failed to spend dollars appropriated by Congress that he was legally required to spend. This is about a purchase made by a foreign government and our decision whether to deliver that purchase right now, which could enable an operation we’ve publicly and privately objected to.”








