what's also interesting in this post, is that it was during the prior administration, that The Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice was petitioned to rule "that in order to open a impeachment inquiry- it had to be voted on by the house in order to be valid". Doesn't mean that McCarthy can't make a lot of noise and headlines with it, but it's likely a false flag and just red-meat the impeachment hungry GOP.
You know Payback- for impeaching orange man-boy twice!
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/0...probe-00115393
In January 2020, the Donald Trump-led Justice Department formally declared that impeachment inquiries by the House are invalid unless the chamber takes formal votes to authorize them.
That opinion — issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — came in response to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to launch an impeachment inquiry into Trump without initially holding a vote for it.
Not only is it still on the books, it is binding on the current administration as it responds to Tuesday’s announcement by Speaker Kevin McCarthy to authorize an impeachment inquiry into Biden, again without a vote.
“[W]e conclude that the House must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation before the committee may compel the production of documents or testimony,” wrote Steven Engel, then the head of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, backing the Trump administration’s rejection of subpoenas from the Democratic congressional investigators.
“The House had not authorized such an investigation in connection with the impeachment-related subpoenas issued before October 31, 2019, and the subpoenas therefore had no compulsory effect,” Engel, a Senate-confirmed Trump appointee, concluded in his 54-page opinion.
Trump’s impeachment attorneys revealed the secret DOJ opinion in papers submitted as part of their trial defense in the Senate. Now, that opinion could carry significant ramifications as Republicans embark on an impeachment inquiry into Biden.
Biden, as the president, would have more flexibility about whether to heed the OLC opinion. But he could simply choose to follow Trump’s precedent. He also may have grounds to assert executive privilege that could similarly tie up GOP investigators — claims Trump also lodged to jam his own inquiry.
If Republicans are forced to live with the Trump-era precedent that their party set, so too will Democrats who once mocked them for it. Many Biden backers ridiculed the position that an impeachment inquiry is impotent without a vote by the full House.
“In the history of our Nation, the House of Representatives has never attempted to launch an impeachment inquiry against the President without a majority of the House taking political accountability for that decision by voting to authorize such a dramatic constitutional step,” Cipollone wrote on Oct. 8, 2019. But it wasn’t until January that the Justice Department formally backed up his position.
McCarthy, at the time, also called the impeachment inquiry illegitimate. (He had pledged as of a week ago to hold a vote if he were to go down the same path with Biden before scrapping one on Tuesday.)
That darn pesky Office of Legal Council- aka OLC, that same organization that determined that you cannot indict a sitting president; protecting Trump during the Meuller reports and was the direct reason that Meuller didn't state definitively that Trump should be indicted for obstruction, is the same organization that is now the ruling opinion on how impeachments have to happen moving forward. No Vote- no validity.
Not saying that there is NO reason to investigate- cause honestly, I'd like to see all the old guard out of washington, but if the rules were good enough to protect Trump, they also apply to Biden. I don't agree that a sitting POTUS should be immune to indictments for bad acts, but today's current politics that use poisonous posts, allegations, and innuendo without facts on either side is the reason for that protection.
Every single POTUS in the past 60 yrs, with the exception of Carter and Ford, should likely have had probes into bad actions. Maybe food for another thread, but this impeachment is a lot of hot air, and no facts that tie Poppa Biden to his son besides the claims of a few fraudsters, and convicted con-men. All this and it will still fall apart when it comes to a vote to convict. Just doesn't have the votes, so to that, it's all a show to put a negative light on the current guy in office.
We've all seen the show, and know how it ends. "Absolutely Nothing wrong, a perfect phone call, and complete exoneration."
Why Biden should never be impeached? Put this out of your stupid agendas Republicans…
