Democrats set the precedent for impeachment against a former president with the way they treated former President Donald Trump.
Now, those same Democrats are learning in real-time that what goes around comes around.
Fox News reports Republican Rep. Cory Mills is working to draft articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden in light of comments made in which he threatened to withhold aid from Israel should they chose to invade Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday night, Biden stated that while Israel is guaranteed support for its own defense, if they launched an invasion of Rafah, he would not supply aid.
“I made it clear that if they [the Israelis] go into Rafah – they haven’t gone into Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah,” the president said.
He went further in remarking, “…they’re not going to get our support if in fact they go into these population centers. We’re not walking away from Israel’s security; we’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton was among several Republicans to call these statements an impeachable offense via a Thursday X post.
The House has no choice but to impeach Biden based on the Trump-Ukraine precedent of withholding foreign aid to help with reelection. Only with Biden, it’s true.
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) May 9, 2024
Should Biden be impeached?
As Cotton states here, the die was cast when Democrats decided to file articles of impeachment in 2019, claiming Trump tried to withhold aid from Ukraine if they did not investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden for business dealings there.
Other Republicans were quick to follow in noting the similarities, per Fox News.
Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde bluntly put it: “Given Democrats’ Trump-Ukraine precedent, President Biden’s decision to withhold lethal aid to our ally, Israel, for political gain is undoubtedly an impeachable offense. Clearly, the nefarious motive behind our commander in chief’s move to condition U.S. aid to Israel is to appease radical leftists and Hamas sympathizers ahead of the 2024 election.”
Just as Democrat’s claimed Trump’s dealings with Ukraine were politically motivated with the 2020 election against Biden in mind, so Republicans are making the same claim about Biden here.
Criticism of Israel has spurred agitation and sit-ins across college campuses in recent weeks over their ongoing war with Hamas, after the latter’s attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
Essentially, in threatening to withhold aid from Israel, Biden is courting the vote of the radical left, hoping those college-aged voters will show up for him at the polls in November.
That certainly seems like withholding foreign aid for political gain, no? And now, thanks to their 2019 antics, Democrats are getting a small taste of their own medicine.
After Trump was impeached not once, but an unprecedented two times, by Democrats, this entire process has effectively been weaponized. Due to those actions, Democrats are actively learning that it’s not so fun when the rabbit’s got the gun.
While impeachment has historically been on the table for the most egregious cases where presidents have been derelict in their duty — Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton, for example — Trump’s term made it less about the principle of the matter and more about the vindictive nature of the parties in looking to hamstring each other.
Johnson found himself in Congress’ crosshairs for violating the Tenure of Office Act in firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.
Nixon could not shake the Watergate scandal nor Clinton for his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
While Nixon resigned before ever going to trial, one hundred years lapsed between Watergate and Johnson’s trial. Meanwhile, Clinton’s presidency was in the nineties.
Compare that to just the last five years, where Americans have seen impeachment become far too prevalent.
After Democrats went after Trump so ferociously, the American people may very well begin to see impeachment as something mundane, or commonplace.
This is the new standard the Democrats set in 2019, and that party must now deal with those consequences.
