Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that even if President Joe Biden has been a failure in the White House, that does not mean Republicans can pervert the impeachment process.
Graham said that Democrats threw the concept of due process to the winds in the 2019 and 2021 impeachment efforts when they were trying to nail former President Donald Trump to the wall.
He said having a House floor vote in articles of impeachment – as Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado sought to do – was the wrong way to go, according to The Hill.
“What’s being done in the House to go straight to the floor with articles of impeachment — we criticized the Democrats for not giving Trump any due process. I think this is dead on arrival,” he said.
Graham said it was “irresponsible” to jump to an impeachment vote without “some process in place” to lay a foundation.
“It’s important that we follow the process, and if you believe that President Biden has done something this impeachable, take it through the committee, give him a chance to respond, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.
Boebert forced the House to take a floor vote on the articles of impeachment she brought against Biden by bringing what’s called a privileged motion to the floor. However, instead of moving directly ahead, the House voted 219-208 to send Boebert’s articles to the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees, according to Roll Call. Boebert had said in her articles of impeachment that Biden should be removed due to the border crisis he instigated and failed to resolve.
Boebert, whose aggressive actions brought consternation to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans, said Thursday the compromise would allow the House to develop “a body of evidence at the committee level” for an eventual Senate trial, adding that she hoped it happens “this year and very soon.”
“I came here to fix Congress, and my actions to call up my privileged resolution made way to begin an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden,” she said.
Republican Rep. Mike Garcia of California echoed Graham in his reaction to Boebert’s initial call for an impeachment floor vote.
“That’s literally what they did to then-President Trump. And we all looked at that knowing it was absurd. There was no testimony. There’s no evidence. There was no due process,” he said, according to Politico.
Garcia said “there’s a process to get to that point of substantiation and validity. And we’re not, in my opinion, there yet.”
In a release on her website, Boebert made no apologies for her unconventional tactics to move impeachment to the forefront.
“For the first time in 24 years, a House Republican led the House majority in voting to begin impeachment proceedings against a current president,” her release said.
She called the result of the House vote a “victory,” adding, “I will continue to use every available procedural tool to hold Joe Biden accountable and advance impeachment proceedings.”
The release said Boebert “is supportive of the impeachment proceedings going through the traditional, institutional process to highlight the importance of this constitutional check and balance on Joe Biden’s unconstitutional failure to enforce our immigration and border security laws. Congresswoman Boebert’s action jumpstarted impeachment proceedings against President Biden, and she will continue to use every procedural tool available to keep the issue of holding Joe Biden accountable at the forefront.”
via madpatriotnews
