Former U.S. President Joe Biden saw multiple efforts by some members of the Republican Party to impeach him. An impeachment inquiry into Biden was launched in September 2023, without a vote, by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who designated three House committees led by James Comer, chairman of House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. A number of prominent Republican lawmakers, along with Donald Trump and some of his political allies, have indicated the motivation behind efforts to impeach Biden is also driven by resentment over Trump's previous two impeachments.
There has often been a lack of consensus among supporters of impeachment as to what the root offenses for an impeachment should be. Issues that have been floated by prominent proponents have included Biden's handling of illegal immigration at the United States–Mexico border, the handling of the United States' withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Biden's extension of a federal COVID-19 eviction moratorium, other COVID-19 pandemic-related actions of Biden, business dealings of Biden's son Hunter (incorporating allegations of the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory), Biden's energy policy, the Joe Biden classified documents incident, and the accusation that Biden was "weaponizing" the government.
During the Democratic-controlled 117th United States Congress, Republican members submitted nine resolutions to impeach Biden, although expressed support for these resolutions was limited among Republicans in the United States House of Representatives, as none of these resolutions had more than seven cosponsors, and a number had no cosponsors. More than half of the resolutions were submitted by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who submitted the first impeachment resolution on the first full day of Biden's presidency. Ahead of the 2022 United States House of Representatives elections, many news outlets predicted that impeachment might receive high priority from House Republicans if they retook the majority. However, after Republicans won a much weaker majority than many had predicted they would, many news outlets expected that the prospects of an impeachment were less likely. Several resolutions to impeach were introduced in the Republican-majority 118th United States Congress, but these did not advance beyond committee and have received very few co-sponsors.
On July 24, 2023, Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy stated that he saw House investigations into Biden as likely to justify a future impeachment inquiry. McCarthy launched such an inquiry on September 12, 2023, doing so without holding a House vote. There were also differing degrees of efforts to impeach other Biden administration officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Secretary Mayorkas was impeached in February 2024.
Despite neither the earlier Comer committee investigation nor the impeachment inquiry finding evidence of wrongdoing by the president, on December 13, 2023, the United States House of Representatives voted 221–212, along party lines, to approve a resolution that formalized the inquiry. By March 2024 the impeachment inquiry was winding down, having found no evidence to proceed.
Background A desire to impeach Biden was expressed by a number of influential members of the opposition Republican Party.
Some analysts have observed that, due to the two impeachments that Donald Trump faced in his presidency, he and many in the Republican Party have a desire to exact revenge on Democrats by impeaching a Democratic president.
Former president Trump publicly called several times after the start of the 118th Congress for the impeachment of Biden.Multiple sources:
Pre-inauguration support Even before Biden won the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election, there was talk of how the Republican Party might impeach him if he became president. Joni Ernst, United States Senator from Iowa, in February 2020 remarked that the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory could be grounds for "impeachable whatever" if Biden were to become president.
Before Biden took office and shortly after the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol, Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist for Biden's predecessor Donald Trump, called for Biden to be impeached for "his illegitimate activities of stealing the presidency," referring to unfounded conspiracy theories which formed the basis of attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Developments during the 117th Congress
House developments during the 117th Congress On January 21, 2021, the day after the inauguration of Joe Biden, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed an article of impeachment against President Biden. Her articles related to the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory. Greene alleged abuse of power while Biden previously served as vice president of the United States. Her article of impeachment claimed that Viktor Shokin was investigating the founder of Burisma Holdings, a natural gas giant in Ukraine. Biden's son Hunter Biden had served as a member of the board since 2014. However, Shokin was not investigating the company. There is no concrete evidence that suggests Biden had pressured Ukraine to benefit his son. The day it was introduced, the article was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. On March 5, 2021, the article was referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Liberties. No further action has been taken on the article.
In June 2021, Donald Trump expressed interest in pursuing a scenario in which he would run for a House of Representatives seat in Florida in the 2022 House elections, get himself elected speaker of the House, and then launch an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
Following the withdrawal of American military forces from Afghanistan, the Fall of Kabul on August 15, 2021, and the subsequent attack on Kabul's airport, several Republicans, including Representatives Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Ronny Jackson, called for either the stripping of Biden's powers and duties via the 25th Amendment or removal of Biden from office via impeachment if Americans and allies were left behind and held hostage in Afghanistan by the Taliban. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pledged a “day of reckoning” against Biden. There were also Republican calls for Vice President Kamala Harris and other Biden Cabinet officials to be impeached and removed as well.
On September 21, 2021, Republican Representative Bob Gibbs, with several cosponsors, introduced articles of impeachment related to the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Celine Castronuovo of The Hill opined that this resolution was not likely to fare better than Greene's previous impeachment resolution, but also that it demonstrated "how the introduction of articles of impeachment is becoming more common in today's polarized House". Also in September 2021, Republican Representative Lauren Boebert announced articles of impeachment against President Biden and Vice President Harris, charging them with failing "to ensure the national security of the United States and its citizens" in the withdrawal of the United States military from Afghanistan.
In March 2022, Republican Representative Jim Jordan stated in an interview with The Washington Times that he believed his party should discuss the possibility of impeaching Biden, and that illegal immigration might be one of reasons to impeach Biden, but that an impeachment might focus on another matter entirely.
In September 2022, Republican Representative Nancy Mace characterized there being "pressure on Republicans," to impeach Biden if they won control of the House. In August 2022, Mike Lillis of The Hill likened early calls for impeachment by right-wing conservatives in the Republican Party to the early efforts to impeach Donald Trump, noting that, after Democrats took the House majority in the 2018 House elections, early calls by liberals on the Democratic Party's left were regularly rejected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi until after a whistleblower accused Trump of the acts that resulted in his first impeachment.
It was noted by analysts that Republican calls for impeachment lacked a consensus on what the grounds for impeachment would be. Reasons Republican House members have floated for why to impeach Biden had included the withdrawal of the United States military from Afghanistan, illegal immigration and border enforcement, Biden's extension of a federal pandemic eviction moratorium, and various acts of the Biden administration regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
By September 2022, nine impeachment resolutions against Biden had been introduced. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had authored five of them. Many of those sponsoring and cosponsoring these resolutions were members of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. Support for impeachment had been particularly prominent among congresspeople associated with the House Freedom Caucus. Reasons for impeachment cited by the nine resolutions varied. They included Biden's handling of illegal immigration at the United States-Mexico border, the handling of the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan, the COVID-19 eviction moratorium, and Hunter Biden's business dealings. However, Oliver Knox of the Washington Post characterized the push to impeach Biden as "anemic" due to the fact that none of these had more than seven cosponsors, and some of them had no cosponsors. However, he also predicted that this could change if Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives. He attributed the small support the resolutions had received, in part, to the fact that they would not likely amount to an impeachment while Democrats held majority control of the House of Representatives.
Ahead of the 2022 midterms, numerous prominent political analysts predicted that if the Republican Party won control of the House of Representatives for the 118th United States Congress, Biden might be impeached, as might other Biden administration officials such as Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, all of whom many House Republicans had expressed an open interest in impeaching.Multiple Sources: In addition to the nine articles of impeachment introduced against Biden by September 2022, by this time five other impeachment resolutions had been introduced against other members of his administration: two being against Attorney General Garland and the other three being against Vice President Harris, Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas. Discussions in Republican circles had also taken place before the midterms about the possibility of impeaching of Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. Congressman David Schweikert had also proposed the idea of impeaching FBI Director Chris Wray.
Outlets such as The Hill predicated that an impeachment of Biden would be "a top priority" for House Republicans if they won control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections. In early September 2022, a Rasmussen Reports poll found 52% of likely midterm voters to support impeachment. Shortly before the 2022 midterm elections, another Rasmussen Reports poll indicated that 54% of likely voters expected that, if Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, a Republican House would impeach Biden. The Biden administration even took steps that were potentially in preparation for investigations under a Republican congress, such as staffing a legal counsel office. As the election neared, many top members of the Republican Party, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, attempted to downplay discussion of impeaching Biden, perhaps fearing that it might put-off some voters.