August 5, 2023

“There comes a time in the life of every man when he must take the bull squarely by the tail and face the situation.” —W.C. Fields

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Our elected representatives in D.C. are faced with just such a circumstance. To impeach Joe Biden or not to impeach Joe Biden. This is almost always presented in an either/or metaphor: Scylla and Charybdis, a rock and a hard place, and so on. The essence of these arguments is that impeachment/no impeachment offers no good option. I submit that this is a form of the Fallacy of the Excluded Middle.

The basic case in favor of impeachment is simply that he should be impeached because the President has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt to have been a central conspirator in a bribery scheme between government actors. At this point, the lawyers should sit down, and politicians ought to stand up.

Bribery is listed in the Constitution as a cause for impeachment, so there can be no argument that this satisfies the first criterion. But now Democrats will object that there must be evidence of present bribery because Joe wasn’t President when he got paid, and there’s no evidence that he’s getting paid right now. But they leave out a key element of bribery. The person being bribed promises some action in favor of the person bribing. These actions offer occur after the bribe is paid. In the interregnum known as 45, Joe got lots of payola in anticipation of being able to do favors from the White House later. Since those favors are arguably continuing, the bribery continues.

Image: Joe Biden. YouTube screen grab.

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We don’t need to go rely on that most famous case where Joe bragged on camera about getting rid of Victor Shokin, the prosecutor investigating Burisma. That happened while Biden was VP. In the language of the law, it shows a pattern of bribery and impeaches any testimony in his defense. And there’s lots of evidence that his pattern of “favors for fins” is ongoing, particularly with China. And, as the Bard says, “Aye, there’s the rub.” What do we do about it? The Constitution seems to provide for impeachment as the only check on a corrupt President. It’s political act, and legal action can only come after removal from office.

The argument against impeaching Biden is rather simple. We won’t get a two-thirds vote to convict in the Senate since Democrats are in the majority, and they won’t convict their guy. So why bother? We’d be wasting time. On the flip side of this are the two Trump impeachments. The Dems knew they wouldn’t ever convict him, but they wanted to throw enough mud at him to make him look dirty in the election. They’ve continued this pattern in New York, Georgia, Mar-a-Lago, and J6. Do I sense a pattern here?

The mantra against impeachment is, “It’s political!” Of course it is. It’s the only constitutional avenue available. But Democrats want that to sound bad, as in, “The only reason you’re pursuing impeachment is that you don’t like Joe.” And lots of low-information voters will hear only that. So, the invertebrates in the “R” caucus will wilt like snowflakes and oppose the inquiry. But let us consider what will result if two things happen.

First, suppose the House does a televised proper inquiry similar to the Watergate special committee. All questioning of witnesses is done by attorneys selected by the two sides. Republicans bring their big guns, and Democrats get a full opportunity to respond in kind. Standard rules of evidence apply, and a retired judge (Justice Anthony Kennedy, perhaps?) sits as the judge on all issues of procedure and propriety. All angles of evidence are presented and cross-examined. Once the process is complete, the matter is put to the House for a vote.

We should note that Donald Trump was not afforded any of this sort of due process in either of his impeachments. Presenting Joe Biden with this degree of legal protection would show that the Republican majority is interested in determining the facts of the matter, not simply rushing forward as Nancy Pelosi did in the second Trump indictment. As you may recall, the House did zero investigation, declaring that none was needed. The optics of that resemble a schoolyard fight.

Having been particularly careful to provide Joe with all legal safeguards, a vote to impeach would begin with a serious presumption of correctness. And since the largest part of the charges would revolve around bribery, Democrats would be unable to hide behind the “high crimes and misdemeanors” term of art. Bribery is a crime at all levels, and it’s very easy for the average citizen to understand. They’ve seen too many TV shows with crooked cops taking dirty money to ignore it when the Chief Executive is directly involved. And this puts Senate Democrats in a bit of a bind.