According to an article in yesterday’s Times (online), Lindsey Graham has stated that if the Republicans win the HR in 2020, their first act will be to impeach Kamala Harris. Her “high crime and misdemeanor” was to support a project to raise bail for Black Lives Matter demonstrator. He also predicted that impeachment will become a common act by both parties in the future.
Of course, it will keep the senate busy, but then they don’t do anything anyway.
How is that even arguably an impeachable offense? How can it be viewed as an offense of any kind? The right to bail is right there in the Bill of Rights.
Out of curiosity, did any elected republican officials donate money to Kyle Rittenhouse?
This is just overheated political bluster, in the vein of “lock her up!” that was directed at Hillary. He knows perfectly well that HE, a Senator, has no say in who gets impeached, that is the responsibility of The House.
He is just testing talking points for laying the groundwork for his 2024 Trump style Presidential run. He is calculating that Kamala could be the Dem candidate. At least she can be a convenient punching bag. Also, he gets a two-fer as she is female and a person of color, so there is that.
Lindsay Graham is probably wrong (shocker, I know). I don’t see how or why a GOP-controlled House could possibly get a majority to vote to impeach the VP over so little. I guess it’s possible if Trumpy Republicans have a big red wave, but remember that only 197 voted against Trump’s second impeachment. So they need at least 20 more, and that’s assuming that every Republican that voted against Trump’s impeachment would vote for a hypothetical Harris impeachment.
For reference, in the 2018 midterms, which was a historically big blue wave, Democrats won 38 seats. They already gave back a few of them. Now redistricting will help the GOP too, and I’d put them as favorites to reclaim the House right now just based on priors, but 20+ reps crazy enough to impeach Harris seems impossible right now. Most of the fertile ground for the GOP is either redistricted seats or suburban seats that hated Trump. They have pretty much maxed out the rural base districts.
Graham is just sucking up to Trump and Trump’s base. As per usual. His one moment of sanity (the denunciation of the election-stealing lie) has been used up for this cycle.
[Graham] That was written by Whites for Whites. [/Graham] /s
I wish people (both sides) would get called out on this more. Drag Lindsey out, put him in front of…whoever he needs to be in front of (and a camera) and ask him to defend or recant his accusations.
The baseless accusations and outright fear mongering are a huge part of the problem. If he thinks she should be impeached, fine, explain which law she broke and/or what, exactly, you think she should be investigated for.
Of course, in bizarro GOP world, supporting a project to raise bail for BLM protestors morphs into this Graham quote:
Because she actually bailed out rioters and one of the rioters went back to the streets and broke somebody’s head open. So we’ve opened Pandora’s Box here and I’m sad for the country.
Unfortunately, I think the idea here is to normalize the idea that impeachment is a purely political act of revenge – that it doesn’t actually MEAN anything, and, therefore, the fact that Trump was impeached twice doesn’t say anything about the sheer awfulness of Trump’s behavior, it’s just what happens when one’s political “enemies” are in power. And I fear it could end up working that way. We may be approaching an era when there’s a pro forma impeachment of every president whenever the opposite political party controls Congress, it always ends in acquittal, and the idea of impeachment has been completely defanged – with nothing to replace it and no way to hold presidents accountable for, basically, anything. Ugh.
Which she didnt even do.
Kamala Harris’s real offense in the eyes of the GOP is being a black woman in the Vice-President role. They just have to give it another label as a fig leaf for their bigotry.
Stranger
nobody will be removed by impeachment for a long time. It will be a waste of time to try.
This is the whole and entire point.
It’s just another form of bothsidesism with a side order of “We’ll stop at nothing to enshrine our party as the only party in power ever”.
And far more dangerous for that than if it was simply stretching a point a little to try to make some made-up dirt stick to Harris.
Yeah, there are an unfortunate number of elected officials who can not seem to separate their duties as servants of the public (and the constitutional oaths they took), from their role as political actors. And before anyone jumps into the “both sides” wagon - no, it is extremely asymmetrical in practice.
The one side sees impeachment as a purely political act, as opposed to a constitutional act. So they use it as such (Clinton?), and assume that the other side uses it in the same manner, all evidence to the contrary.
No, her real “high crime and misdemeanor” is being an uppity colored woman taking a high-prestige job away from deserving White Men.
Unfortunately, that might actually happen.
^ That.
^ That.
Harris is guilty only of being a woman of color in power in the US, which is something that conservatives simply cannot tolerate. They couldn’t stomach a minority president, they sure as hell can’t stomach a female minority vice president. Come on Lindsey, we know you don’t like women but to stoop this low?
My money says that if Graham is still around in 4 years and we have a republican minority and/or woman as president or VP, Graham will be thrilled about it.
Remember this is the guy that continusly called Trump, pre-election, a kook, then went on the record saying he doesn’t know why everyone keeps calling this guy a kook. In 2016 he said “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…and we will deserve it.” and now he…well he doesn’t seem to feel that way.
I don’t even know how the other members of his own party take him seriously.
TLDR: I’d argue that Graham’s problem isn’t about her being a her or her being a minority, just about her being a dem (but the color and gender make her an easier target for his base than biden).
He has singled out Harris but not Biden, and on a basis that even Monty Python would consider to silly to play. I wouldn’t be surprised if Graham accused her of turning him into a newt.
Stranger
Why would it always end in acquittal?
It looks like impeachment will now be a standard tool in the political toolbox.
There will be no need to find a “high crime and misdemeanor” to accuse the president of, because the “trial” will always be a joke, and the votes will always be 100% by party.
Whenever the same party controls both houses, (which could happen 23 months from now) the president will be impeached, and removed from office.
So from now on, the Presidency is only a 2 year job. The midterm elections will become just as important as the 4-year elections; because if the midterms cause the parties change power, the new majority party will automatically impeach and throw out the current President.
I blame the Dems for this–they knew they had no chance of actually getting rid of Trump either time, but they insisted on carrying out both impeachments unnecessarily. Now it will come back to bite them in the butt
We have at least one poster on this board who has repeatedly stated his belief that the BLM protests are the equivalent of the Capitol riots.
So if the Democrats impeach Trump for a connection with the Capitol riots than it’s only fair that the Republicans impeach Harris for a connection with the BLM protests.
Of course, this only makes sense to people who don’t understand what’s going on and are easily manipulated. But those are the people whose votes Graham is counting on.