To Impeach, or Not to Impeach, That is the Question
William Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “To be or not to be: that is the question.” I ask the same about impeaching President Joe Biden – to impeach or not impeach. Speaker Kevin McCarthy answered that question, and the process is moving forward, at least in appearance.
Here is what Hamlet then said,
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
Hamlet is wondering if it is better to end one’s suffering through suicide or to take the slings and arrows of “outrageous fortune” by fighting on. Which is preferable? Will the Republicans, known as “the stupid party,” botch this, committing political suicide in November 2024? Or will they finally grow a spine and push back against the Democrats and administrative state?
I know how former President Donald Trump would answer as he did even before he was elected president. In a famous October 2016 speech he promised, “Nevertheless, I take all of these slings and arrows gladly for you.”
Will impeaching Biden be a political home run or lead to a “sea of troubles” in November 2024? Many have pontificated on the merits and pitfalls of impeachment. What is the best course forward?
President Biden’s transgressions certainly rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” His family sold the former vice president’s influence to foreign players, including countries not friendly to U.S. interests.
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Hunter Biden supported his grifting family, serving as the bagman raking in tens of millions from China, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and who knows where else. He paid father Joe’s and the family’s expenses and built into his deals “10 percent for the Big Guy,” a.k.a., Pops.
Joe participated in at least 20 of Hunter’s shakedown phone calls, clearly involved in his son’s foreign influence peddling despite his protestations to the contrary. Joe didn’t have to say anything significant on those calls. Simply having the U.S. vice president on the line spoke volumes to the influence Hunter was offering his business associates.
Trump administration officials were prosecuted for FARA violations. Biden family members received a pass. Don’t be distracted by Hunter’s gun indictment as that is one of few of his transgressions that doesn’t involve his father, conveniently enough. Trump was indicted with a mugshot plastered all over social media. Where’s Hunter’s mugshot?
Trump was impeached for asking Ukraine to investigate what we know now was Biden family influence-peddling. What Trump asked about was true and he was impeached for asking, with some Republican senators even voting for his conviction. Yet Biden gets a pass for corruptly doing what Trump was only asking about.
What exactly are the Biden family businesses requiring more than 20 shell companies to presumably hide and launder money? Why have banks filed over 150 suspicious activity reports over Biden family financial transactions?
To most honest observers, Biden’s transgressions are obvious. So, impeachment should be a slam dunk, right? Some Republican House members are either cognitively impaired or willfully obtuse and see no evidence of any wrongdoing.
Colorado Rep. Ken Buck sees no evidence that Biden committed a high crime or misdemeanor. He has been all over cable news, morphing from a Tea Party conservative into a Mitt Romney clone, a Democrat apologist and enabler.
Speaking of Mitt, he agrees with Kenny B., saying, "I haven't heard any allegation that would rise to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor." Good thing Romney isn’t running for reelection. Maybe Buck will follow Romney’s lead.
Romney used his age of 76 as his excuse for not seeking reelection. He looks healthy and vigorous, and appears of sound, although non-conservative, mind, light years better than some of his Senate colleagues. The reality is he would not win reelection and Trump would target him bigly through Utah Trump rallies.
He describes himself as a “wise wing Republican.” In 2012, he was a “severe conservative.” In reality, he is a Rockefeller country club Republican whose forte is giving concession speeches.
While impeachment seems an obvious remedy to Biden Family foreign influence peddling, the optics of impeachment are often unfavorable.
President Bill Clinton was not impeached over Oval Office sex with a White House intern, despite the media narrative, but instead over perjury in grand jury testimony and obstruction of justice. Clinton remained popular and George W. Bush barely won the White House in 2020. If Al Gore embraced rather than ran away from Bill Clinton, he might have won the election.
Similarly, Trump is more popular than ever after his two nonsensical impeachments, now leading the GOP field by almost 50 points, according to a recent Fox News poll. Would lunch-bucket Joe be more popular after impeachment? Impeachment, if it continues, will become a major campaign issue.
Could the House even impeach Biden? Republicans have a 10 seat majority in the House. Peel off a few weak-kneed Republicans like Rep. Buck and the GOP won’t have the votes for impeachment. Unlike Democrats who are unified as a party, the GOP is filled with mavericks who prefer to virtue signal and audition for future cable news gigs rather than follow the will of their voters.
The Senate is worse, requiring a two thirds majority to convict. Republicans are in the minority in the Senate and linguine-spined Republicans like Romney, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and others will not likely vote to convict Biden regardless of the evidence.
So why bother if impeachment is dubious and conviction impossible?
The biggest reason is that the House impeachment committees would now have greater subpoena power. Congress can subpoena for legislative purpose. General oversight may not fall into that category according to some leftist judges. But impeachment is a legislative process spelled out in the Constitution.
Time to look at Biden family bank and phone records and efforts of the FBI and DOJ to hide and obfuscate their obligation to investigate and apply the law equally and fairly.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant ahead of the election and now is the perfect time to expose it all. Where will the money and influence chicanery lead? To the Clintons? How about the Obamas? What did Barack Obama know about his vice president’s influence-peddling and bribery and when did he know it?
Those revelations might be inconvenient to Mrs. Obama who is rumored to be the dark horse Democrat candidate for 2024 as filmmaker Joel Gilbert persuasively explains.
The Democrats will howl over impeachment, braying as are Republicans Romney and Buck, that there is “no evidence.” The White House gave their media sycophants marching orders to “ramp up scrutiny” over impeachment charges, in other words, do their duty to the Democrat party to run interference rather than report the news.
Shouldn’t Republicans let Biden twist in the wind? If there is no impeachment inquiry, then the GOP loses subpoena power and the government, assisted by the media, will bury any negative Biden family stories. Just as they did with Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The administrative deep state is obviously worried about what may come of these revelations. The CIA, through its mouthpieces David Ignatius and the Washington Post, is calling for President Biden to not run in 2024.
They must have an idea of upcoming revelations, more than Biden family grift and finances, perhaps Ukraine biolabs funded by Hunter’s companies or other inconvenient family activities. Imagine tying the Biden family to COVID or the Ukraine war.
They want to get way ahead of this as further revelations will likely lead back to the CIA, FBI, and the Obamas. Can’t have that. The Bidens are expendable, the deep state is not.
Let the impeachment inquiry begin. Show the evidence of Biden family influence-peddling and bribery and whoever else it leads to. When the heat gets too warm in the Obama and Clinton kitchens, don’t be surprised to see Joe sent permanently to the beach house via the 25th Amendment followed quickly by a President Kamala Harris pardon of the entire Biden family.
When Joe becomes an anchor around 2024 electoral prospects, let the Democrats be the hatchet men, dispatching Joe, Jill, Jim and Hunter, Tony Soprano-style, never to be heard from again, free to live lives of luxury with their ill-gotten money.
So far, the Biden crime family has gotten a pass. Don’t expect the FBI and DOJ to do their jobs. They no longer represent justice, rather they are the private police force of the Democrat party. Republicans are the last hope to right this “injustice system” or else America will further descend into a one-party totalitarian police state.
To impeach or not to impeach? That’s an easy answer. Republicans must take the inevitable slings and arrows as that is what we elected them to do. If they are not willing, then turn out the lights on the Republican Party and the great American experiment.
Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer. Follow me on Twitter @retinaldoctor, Substack Dr. Brian’s Substack, Truth Social @BrianJoondeph, and LinkedIn @Brian Joondeph.