By Modern Standards, Biden Should Be Impeached | Opinion

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By Mark R. Weaver former Deputy Attorney General of OhioFOLLOW

Based on modern legislative interpretations of impeachable conduct, the U.S. House of Representatives has enough evidence to impeach President Joe Biden. "Show me the treason, high crime, or misdemeanor" some will shout. Here's my reply: Go get elected to the House, where you and your colleagues alone decide what evidence meets that standard.

The Constitution grants the House the sole power to impeach. This authority, like the queen's exclusive ability to move diagonally, vertically, and horizontally along a chessboard, is not shared. Just as a queen's move is not constrained by the paths of other pieces, the House's decision to impeach isn't subject to review by other government actors. And the House exercises considerable judgement in defining the founders' intentionally vague phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Gerald Ford, one of the few Americans to ever hold the position of top congressional leader and president, once observed, "an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." That notion is bipartisan. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, in the first Trump impeachment, expressly stated that "impeachment is part of democratic governance."

Lest you think that such broad congressional power is dangerous, the founding fathers disagreed. While debating impeachment powers, Constitutional Convention delegate Elbridge Gerry noted that a good president "will not fear them [and] a bad one ought to be kept in fear of them."

In fact, during the ratification debate, James Iredell, who would become one of our first Supreme Court Justices, said, "If the President does a single act by which the people are prejudiced, he is punishable ... and impeachable."

While the founding fathers did think impeachment would be rare, the modern trend of endless partisan whack-a-mole has proved their predictions wrong. Indeed, heated partisan disagreement fueled all four presidential impeachments.

Andrew Johnson made congressional enemies over reconstruction policy and triggered their impeachment ire by firing one of his cabinet secretaries against their wishes. The political discords in the Clinton and Trump impeachments are analogous. The opposing majority in the House looked at the questionable actions of the chief executive, held hearings and, taking political—not legal—action, voted to impeach.

Even accounting for partisan motivation, there's considerable evidence Joe Biden has abused power and more substantiation will likely be revealed in upcoming hearings. The current array deserves review.

It's well established that then-Vice President Biden conditioned a $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine on firing the prosecutor investigating Burisma, Hunter Biden's client and benefactor. Biden's claim that the U.S. State Department pushed for that firing has been disproven. Even beyond that, official FBI records document Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky, asserting he was paying $5 million to "one Biden" and "to another Biden."

Biden's own Justice Department intentionally allowed the statute of limitations for potential crimes in Hunter's Ukraine dealings to lapse. Biden prosecutors also refused to bring charges against Hunter for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act that are so obvious a mildly skilled law student could prosecute them.

Career IRS agents who blew the whistle on Hunter's tax flimflam have had their credibility vindicated in his recent indictment. Curiously, the Biden prosecutors on that case spent more time detailing the salacious spending rather than the millions funneled to the Biden family. And the creampuff plea deal engineered by Biden's Justice Department to allow the First Son to skate would've taken effect but for the watchful eye of a federal judge.

But it's not just Joe's dealings with Hunter that deserve examination. Court records show that the president's brother James, who shuffled large checks to brother Joe, told business connections that the Biden name opened government doors for Middle East interests and even Communist China.

Richard Nixon was never charged with a crime or impeached but he was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the crimes of others. Despite his provable lies to the contrary, Joe Biden was involved with his son Hunter's foreign influence business. Whether that makes him a co-conspirator in Hunter's crimes is a ripe area for congressional scrutiny.

The most active architect of the Constitution, James Madison, described the type of behaviors that could trigger impeachment as "incapacity, negligence or perfidy." Impeachment served as a safeguard, Madison said, against betrayal of "his trust to foreign powers." Ukraine and China leap to mind.

With these facts in hand, maintaining the partisan claim of "no evidence" is like denying the daylight at dawn. Yes, things were only dimly seen for a while, but the sunlit scrutiny of hearings will almost certainly cast an undeniable beam on this conclusion: It's time to impeach Joe Biden.

Mark R. Weaver is a prosecutor and formerly served as a Justice Department spokesman and Deputy Attorney General of Ohio. He is the author of "A Wordsmith's Work." X: @MarkRWeaver

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.