The less obvious reason House Republicans want to impeach Biden

Freshman Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) has introduced articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden. The charges relate to his son, Hunter Biden, whose plea negotiations with newly appointed Special Counsel David Weiss are ongoing.

Unfortunately for Steube, there’s “not a whiff of evidence” against the president, as Washington Post analyst Philip Bump put it.

Trump-supportive Republicans in the House have admitted as much. On Aug. 9, Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) stated, “Well, we’ve never claimed that we have direct money going to the president, but many members of his family have received money from foreign governments.”

Similarly, on August 11, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) came up empty on CNN. Host Jake Tapper told Comer, “I don’t see any evidence of any crime…It seems like you’re trying just to go after President Biden.” Comer responded evasively by saying, in effect, that he might eventually come up with the evidence. He’s already run innumerable committee hearings to dig some up some dirt, but all his shovel comes up with is innuendo.

Comer and his right-wing allies are on fire, trying to signal smoke. It’s obvious why. They’re desperate to use mere allegations to counter real evidence against former President Donald Trump, who faces three — likely soon four — indictments.

But here’s what may not be as obvious — a collateral Trumpist benefit beyond the immediate partisan rubbing of sticks together to produce smoke. Republicans want to drain impeachment of meaning as a future tool of presidential accountability. The covert goal is to feed citizens’ cynicism about impeachment.

The hope is that voters will discount any future impeachment of Trump, should he be reelected with a Democratic-majority House that tries to stop his inevitable attempts to dismantle the Constitution. It was only eight months ago that Trump called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Steube’s effort is not likely to result in an actual impeachment. There are 18 Republican members of the House elected from districts that President Biden won. They’re not sold on impeachment, understanding their vulnerability in 2024 if they vote to impeach without the goods.

On July 25, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), plainly having counted the votes, walked back his earlier statements about an impeachment inquiry.

Even so, a steady drumbeat of misinformation, like that alleged in Steube’s proposed “articles,” gets heard, particularly on right-wing channels. Eventually, as we’ve seen with Trump’s lies about the election being stolen, constantly replayed misinformation takes its toll on the institutions of the republic.

Steube’s current proposal is a far cry from the impeachments of Donald Trump, where, in support of articles asserting abuse of his office, there was indisputable evidence.

It’s true that the framers of the Constitution worried that Congress might potentially abuse the impeachment power, dividing Americans along partisan lines “friendly or inimical to the accused,” as Alexander Hamilton wrote.

Ultimately, though, the Founders overcame that concern and followed James Madison’s counsel that the Impeachment Clause was “indispensable … for defending the Community [against] the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate.” They understood that “impeachment was needed as a check against presidential abuse of power.”

An effort to impeach Biden without evidence endangers future Congresses’ ability to fulfill that need. The shameful effort to subvert the impeachment power is meant, at least in part, to weaken an “indispensable” tool against the future “perfidy of the chief Magistrate.”

Trumpist Republicans are hoping that in 2025, the name of America’s “chief Magistrate” is Donald Trump, and that no future Congress will have an effective check or balance against his power to do as he wishes.

By filing transparently partisan articles of impeachment without evidence, Steube and his comrades hope to lead more and more voters to say in the future, “They all do it.” It matters that each of us who can, along with political analysts, speak out against cynical politicians who want to infect the public with their cynicism.

Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor and civil litigator, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy.