Republican Senator Says GOP Could Impeach Joe Biden If He Becomes President
The impeachment case against President Donald Trump is centered on his attempts to get the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Although it is all but certain that the GOP-controlled Senate will acquit Trump, the partisan impeachment battle appears to have galvanized members of both parties.
In an interview with Bloomberg News published on Sunday, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa suggested that Biden could be impeached if he becomes president. The GOP, she said, could impeach Biden — who is one of the leading Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination — over his work in Ukraine while he was vice president.
Ernst suggested that Trump’s impeachment has created a precedent that would allow the GOP to launch a similar initiative against Biden, should he become the commander-in-chief.
“I think this door of impeachable whatever has been opened,” she said, advising Biden to be more “careful.”
“Joe Biden should be very careful what he’s asking for because, you know, we can have a situation where if it should ever be President Biden, that immediately, people, right the day after he would be elected would be saying, ‘Well, we’re going to impeach him.'”
According to the Iowa senator, the GOP could impeach Biden for “being assigned to take on Ukrainian corruption yet turning a blind eye to Burisma because his son was on the board making over a million dollars a year.”
As Bloomberg News notes, Biden’s actions toward Ukraine do not seem to constitute an impeachable offense. Biden was dispatched to Ukraine by former President Barack Obama, in order to tackle corruption in the country.
Although Biden’s son served on the board of Burisma, Biden did not work on ousting Ukraine’s prosecutor general Viktor Shokin in order to benefit his son, but because Shokin was considered a corrupt prosecutor. Furthermore, no congressional Republicans expressed opposition to Shokin’s removal.
According to The Hill, Biden addressed Ernst’s comments during a campaign event in Iowa. Speaking before a group of supporters, the former vice president suggested that the comments prove that the only reason Trump went after him is to influence the 2020 election.
“Why don’t you all show Joni Ernst just how smart you are by caucusing for me?” he joked.
Whether Iowans will caucus for Biden or not remains to be seen, but the former vice president is one of the favorites to win the competition. According to latest polling, Biden trails Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont by 7 percentage points. However, given that voters’ second choice preferences will play an important role in the first-in-the-nation caucus, anything could happen.
