GOP Rep. Greg Steube Has Had Enough, Says It's 'Long Past Time' to Start Process of Impeaching Biden
One GOP congressman believes an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden should begin now.
Those who understand history and the dynamics of power, however, will not hold their breath.
Appearing on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” on Tuesday, Republican Rep. Greg Steube of Florida told host Maria Bartiromo that Biden must be held accountable for “high crimes and misdemeanors” related to his son Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings.
“There’s already evidence of … the bribery and corruption of Joe Biden when he was vice president, taking action while he was president to help out the Chinese Communist Party associates and businesses that his son was affiliated with,” Steube said.
“There’s evidence that he was taking money, and I think it is long past time to begin impeachment proceedings in the House,” he said.
Bartiromo began the interview by asking Steube what he thought of the current state of justice in Washington. Specifically, she asked him where he stood on the Biden case as compared with the treatment former President Donald Trump has received from Biden’s Department of Justice and special counsel Jack Smith.
Steube, a member of both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Judiciary Committee’s select subcommittee on the weaponization of government, acknowledged and explained the disparity.
“D.C. is completely corrupt and has been weaponized at the highest levels of the government in D.C.,” he said. “And they’re using against the number one threat to take on Joe Biden next year, and that’s Donald Trump.”
Bartiromo then asked the congressman how Republicans plan to respond. “The next question,” she said, “has to be what are you going to do about it?”
Steube replied that the House has plenty of evidence to begin an impeachment inquiry.
“You have evidence of corruption,” he said. “You have evidence of bribery. You have testimony from individuals who were part of these conversations with Joe Biden there. You have evidence of WhatsApp messages that Hunter sent while his dad was sitting there, threatening the Chinese Communist Party that if they didn’t send the money that Joe was gonna get involved.
“I mean, it is long past time to begin an impeachment inquiry on corruption, bribery and all these different things that are high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Later, Steube acknowledged that the impeachment question rests with House leadership. He cited, for instance, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Above all, however, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy must act.
“It is long past time to start the impeachment process,” Steube reiterated.
Momentum toward impeachment has been building for months. In late July, McCarthy cautiously suggested that the time for an inquiry might soon arrive.
On Tuesday, however, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, warned against impeaching Biden. It would be “not good for the country,” McConnell said.
No one need wonder why Republican leaders such as McCarthy and McConnell seem so timid.
In fact, a British political theorist explained it all to us more than 300 years ago.
On Feb. 18, 1721, John Trenchard published the 17th installment of “Cato’s Letters.” In this now-classic collection of pseudonymous essays, Trenchard and collaborator Thomas Gordon highlighted rampant corruption in British politics.
Cato No. 17, titled “What Measures are actually taken by wicked and desperate Ministers to ruin and enslave their Country,” had a more universal message.
Specifically, Trenchard noted that the corrupt behavior of “wicked” public officials in all times and places follows a particular pattern.
For instance, those who conspire against liberty will try to enrich themselves at public expense. “They will be ever contriving and forming wicked and dangerous projects, to make the people poor, and themselves rich,” Trenchard wrote.
Furthermore, to keep the people distracted, these wicked plotters “will engage their country in ridiculous, expensive, fantastical wars.” For this same purpose, they “will create parties in the commonwealth, or keep them up where they already are.”
Likewise — and here we see McConnell in action — they will never allow their fellow plotters and plunderers to face consequences.
“They will not suffer any men, who have once tasted of authority, though personally their enemies, and whose posts they enjoy, to be called to an account for past crimes, though ever so enormous,” Trenchard wrote.
“On the contrary,” he added, “they will form new conspiracies, and invent new fences for their own impunity and protection; and endeavour to engage such numbers in their guilt, as to set themselves above all fear of punishment.”
Human nature never changes. In short, the powerful protect the powerful at all costs.
Steube and others might be sincere in their impeachment efforts, but they will have no support from the Republican establishment.
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