Charlie Spiering: Thanks to Nancy Pelosi, We’re Back in Impeachment Season 

On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced his decision to direct the House of Representatives to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. 

Of course, it’s a political move, a decision by McCarthy to strengthen the investigation into the president’s suspected role in selling the Biden brand with his son Hunter and his brother James. So far, Republicans have dug up a lot of compelling evidence surrounding the Biden family’s corruption. 

The list goes on: More than $20 million paid to members of the Biden family from foreign countries, “Ten percent for the big guy,” a message from Hunter threatening a businessman in China until he received a payment of millions of dollars, shared office space with a Chinese energy company, Hunter’s text about being forced to give half of his income to his dad, as well as personal meetings, dinners, pictures, and golf outings with Hunter's business partners and clients. 

“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption, and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” McCarthy said. 

In response, Team Biden’s loudest defense is there is zero evidence that Biden participated in corrupt behavior or benefited from the family’s stumble into wealth from foreign countries.   

At this point, Republicans have not reached the “high crimes and misdemeanors” threshold necessary for a successful impeachment case, but they have certainly reached the new threshold set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019 when she moved to impeach President Donald Trump.  

"The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law,” Pelosi said when she announced her impeachment inquiry in September 2019, just one year before a presidential election. 

Democrats argued that even the whiff of corruption demanded a full-scale investigation into Trump’s activities and ultimately impeachment. 

Now in September 2023, just one year before a presidential election, McCarthy is announcing an impeachment inquiry into Biden. 

In the 2019 impeachment effort by Democrats, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley warned in his testimony that they would face a similar process in the future, warning that their low standards of impeachment “would create a dangerous precedent for future impeachments.” 

“To impeach a president on this record would expose every future president to the same kind of inchoate impeachment,” he said. 

That’s why we’re now in impeachment season: a point where the House of Representatives finds it politically advantageous to pull the process lever to build a case against the president of the opposing party. 

Thanks Nancy Pelosi.