He does reportedly fear poisoning, so I’d be amazed if he ever ate anything the chefs made.
Cold McDonald’s
Stacked up high
E-I-E-I-O
But he had an excellent reason-"Because the Democrats refuse to negotiate on border security, "
He probably just thinks that the Golden Arches are actual gold.
White House Counsel to Republican Speaker of the House:
Cut it out.
In a scathing letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, White House Counsel Ed Siskel said it had become “clear” that the “House Republican impeachment is over,” citing reporting by ABC News, Punchbowl News and Fox News in which members of the Republican majority admitted to reporters that the inquiry is “falling apart,” has found “nothing anywhere close to an impeachable offence” and has failed to “identify a particular crime” that they can use to justify impeaching Mr Biden.
You could almost feel sorry for Mike Johnson. The Trumpites in the House are eager to oust him from the Speakership if he fails to keep going after Biden. Evidence be damned.
Meanwhile it appears that their one and only witness “against” Biden, indicted-for-lying Alexander Smirnov, was well-known as a fraudster long before Republicans (including Fox News) started touting him as their “evidence” that Biden was impeachable.
Covered with glory, all of them!
Johnson to White House: “I’ll let Trump know of your request, and get back to you after he tells me what to do. I hope he doesn’t hit me again.”
From what I read, the tentative plan is to, in lieu of an impeachment sure to fail in the Senate, or even the House, make a criminal referral to the Justice Department. Then, if and when Trump is inaugurated next January, a Trump toady AG will act on the criminal referral and order the arrest of Joe Biden:
This seems to me a realistic plan that will not endanger Mike Johnson in the least, except, maybe, in the eyes of history.
A possible plan weakness is that existing Justice Department employees will refuse to arrest Biden without a long drawn out indictment process. Of course, they already are planning to fire lots of civil servants. Then, the judiciary might stop it with some kind of interlocutory appeal.
If Trump wins, there is no instant dictatorship. Instead, rule of law is put to a test.
First, even they will have to come up with a specific charge.
That’s not something that anyone has been able to articulate. They can’t arrest Biden for “corruption”.
Don’t caudillos arrest first and then come up with charges?
But maybe you are correct – Trump would tell them to charge Joe and Hunter with everything he was charged with. In his first term, his people would have told him you can’t do that. But now he’d have a more compliant team.
A second Trump term would not be fascism. But I don’t think it would exactly be the rule of law either.
However, I’m getting ahead of myself. For this thread, the message is that they don’t have the votes for impeachment.
I see any potential, generic DOJ referral as more of a present day hail mary. Republicans desperately and without forethought trying to have something, anything to show.
The position of POTUS is not an emperor as much as Trump wishes it was.
Always remember: the emperor has no clothes.
If they cannot impeach, then they’re going for criminal charges against President Biden, if I understand correctly. I’m not sure on what grounds, but I’m sure they’ll whomp something up.
They can’t impeach it seems-
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/13/house-gop-biden-impeachment-plans-00146622
House Republicans are increasingly acknowledging that they don’t have the votes to impeach President Joe Biden, leaving them in search of other ways to antagonize the White House.
While some Republicans insist they could still take up formal articles of impeachment, they’re not close to the near-unanimous support to recommend booting him from office. And no bombshell moment emerged out of Tuesday’s high-profile hearing with former Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur, though Hur’s testimony managed to cast Biden in a negative light by exploring his mishandling of classified documents.
Or if he had a conscience. That might endanger him some.
Mike Johnson does have a certain talent for appearing to have a conscience. Someone like Kevin McCarthy is openly a member of the oldest profession (shall we say, given the sub-forum venue). McCarthy is always looking around for instructions on how to arrange his face and what to say.
Johnson emits more of an air of actually consulting his own mind when choosing how to arrange his face and what to say. But the odds are that it’s a sham.
Members of that profession have empathy and humanity. McCarthy? I don’t know.
Fair point.
He’s definitely in the empty shell category, I’d say. As are, I’d guess, many in the House willing to go along with this ‘let’s hold hearings with no evidence but that’s okay just the fact that we hold hearings will convince lots of independent voters that Biden’s a crook’ Plan A. (Of Plan B, the ‘bring criminal charges so Trump’s AG can go after him’ one: that seems to delve more into the realm of Evil.)
It’s really not that hard. You’re having trouble coming up with a charge because you’re worried about all that “having evidence that will stand up in court” thing. Trump and his enablers won’t care about that.
So, charge #1: Biden accepted a bribe. They have someone who says Biden did this, and the fact that the witness is a disaster doesn’t matter.
Charge #2: Biden had classified documents in his possession. They’ll just ignore all the context around that, and charge him for possession. This one would actually stand up, because Biden is technically guilty of it. It’s a matter of prosecutorial discretion that he’s not being charged, and it’s a lock that one of the first things Trump will ask any new DoJ candidates is, “Will you charge Biden with this crime?”
Politically, I don’t see how a criminal referral avails House Republicans at all. More moderate voters will just roll their eyes. And their rabid base voters will be outraged that Republicans couldn’t impeach when they have the majority but instead would rather refer the matter to Biden’s own Justice Department.
Nah, just spin it as “Impeachment is too good for him! Only DC Swamp Dwellers care about impeachment! He should be in jail, that felon!”