Impeaching Biden is a desperate Republican gamble that will backfire
Already in a footrace for re-election, Joe Biden now faces an unwelcome impeachment inquiry. Against the backdrop of a likely government shutdown, the US again stands to be buffeted by our deep and wide partisan divide. Practically speaking, however, he will survive. Conviction by the Senate is a mathematical impossibility.
Democrats are in control and Senate Republicans are nowhere near being onboard. “It’s a waste of time,” as one anonymous Republican senator told the Hill. “It’s a fool’s errand.” Said differently, impeachment will scar all concerned – Republicans included.
Already, Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, appears desperate and craven. “Maybe this is just Kevin giving people their binkie to get through the shutdown,” the same Republican senator remarked.
Even so, Biden confronts rough political terrain. His numbers are underwater, and the US lacks confidence in his capacity to vanquish inflation. His age is a turn-off, too, rivaled only by the unpopularity of Kamala Harris, his running mate.
Meanwhile, the indictment of Hunter Biden, the First Son, is a foregone conclusion, a matter of a few weeks not months. Some of the president’s past statements about his lack of nexus to Hunter and businesses do not withstand scrutiny, according to sworn statements. The Republican party possesses ammo.
Hunter, in fact, did make money in China and Biden did meet with one of his associates. On top of it all, the president clings to his surviving son, inviting him to a state dinner and vacations with him. The psychodrama continues.
Likewise, expect Peter Doocy of Fox News to remain parked at the pivot point between squeegee pest and human thorn. Just a reminder, it was Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post that stuck with the Hunter Biden laptop story. There was a “there” there after all.
Yet, this is only the half of the story. Impeachment will likely pave the way for Republican overreach and stories aplenty of the speaker being inept and beholden to Republican jihadists. It might even cost him his job. The latest polls peg McCarthy’s favorability at minus 16.
While the public has little love for Biden, the impeachment drive could well strike swing voters as a bridge too far. First, the inquiry appears to be legally defective. McCarthy embarked on this voyage without an authorization vote and that may be a big deal, one that rules out the prospect of compliance or assistance from Merrick Garland’s justice department.
Perversely here, Biden may owe Donald Trump a “thank you” of sorts. Back in September 2019, House Democrats initially launched their impeachment without a vote. A month later, one followed. Then in January 2020, Trump’s justice department formally determined that without an authorization vote, impeachment inquiries lack legal teeth.
The Department of Justice’s office of legal counsel opined: “The House of Representatives 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 in support of the House’s power of impeachment.”
Unfortunately for Trump and his allies, the opinion remains on the books and binds the present administration. As a result, the justice department and the White House will be able to smile as they stiff-arm House Republicans.
Then there is McCarthy’s growing credibility problem. Two weeks ago, he told Breitbart that he had the votes in hand. On 1 September 2023, Breitbart’s headlines screamed: “EXCLUSIVE – McCARTHY DETAILS IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY PROCESS: ‘IF WE MOVE FORWARD,’ IT ‘WOULD OCCUR THROUGH A VOTE’ ON THE HOUSE FLOOR.”
Not anymore. Pressed about his prior commitment, McCarthy grew testy, telling CNN: “I never changed my position.”
At the same time, he may be facilitating the end of the current House majority and, by extension, his gig as speaker. Just as abortion limited Republican gains in the midterms, impeachment will likely remind purple America of the Republican party’s capacity for excess and extremism – particularly if House Republicans impose a prolonged government shutdown.
Warning lights flash. “I recommend … against [an impeachment] inquiry unless more evidence that directly connects to President [Biden] is found,” Don Bacon, a Republican congressman from Nebraska, has said. He is also “skeptical” that a vote to launch the inquiry would have succeeded.
Meanwhile, McCarthy can’t even move a partisan defense bill forward and continues to catch incoming fire from the right. The emperor may be stark naked. On Wednesday night, Matt Gaetz labeled him “a sad and pathetic man who lies to hold on to power”.
“Eventually, the lying has to come to an end and the votes are gonna start on a motion to vacate,” the Florida congressman explained.
For his part, Andy Biggs has publicly attacked McCarthy for distracting from the budget fight. “I think the timing is interesting, don’t you?” the Arizona conservative hinted. “It might be seen by some as a deflection.”
For that matter, “desperation” might be the better word. Even as McCarthy seeks to oust Biden, it is his own job that is now in jeopardy.
Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
during her attack; in response, Masterson pulled a gun from his nightstand and told her “not to move or say anything”.
In his letter supporting Masterson, Kutcher called the convicted rapist a “role model”. Kunis wrote of his “exceptional character” and added that Masterson “has had tremendous positive influence on me and the people around him”.
Masterson’s sentencing marks the end of a years-long effort by multiple women to hold him accountable, one that they persisted in despite the seeming indifference of police and alleged intimidation by Los Angeles’s powerful Church of Scientology, of which Masterson and several of his victims were members. (The Church of Scientology denies any harassment or intimidation.)
The district attorney did not decide to bring charges against Masterson until the 2019 civil suit against the actor by four women who accused him of sexual assault began to attract media attention. But the women had been waiting a long time for justice even before then: several of them decided to sue after having grown frustrated with the inaction of police, who had long known of Masterson’s conduct towards them: one of the women had allegedly reported to the cops 15 years before.
But the indifference of law enforcement paled in comparison to the intimidation and retaliation that the women say they faced from the Church of Scientology. They say that after they reported to police, Scientology members began appearing outside their houses in acts of surveillance, and sending threatening messages. One woman says that Scientologists left ground meat laced with rat poison in her yard – a gesture that was apparently intended to kill her dog, which it did.
Kutcher and Kunis’s letters in support of Masterson can be understood as lying on a spectrum of rape apologism and intimidation of women, with Scientologists’ alleged harassment of Masterson’s accusers at the extreme end. These acts of apologia and retaliation all work to inflict punishment on women who report – through social sanction, employment retribution, community exclusion, public humiliation or outright violence – and all work to shield the rapist from consequence.
Kutcher and Kunis are not unique in writing so-called “character letters” for criminal convicts; the documents are a standard piece of the sentencing process, meant to detail mitigating factors, or examples of how the defendant has reformed and brought his behavior more in line with the community’s values. But these letters always seem a bit odd in sexual violence cases, since, for all practical purposes, the sexual violence that men like Masterson commit is already effectively sanctioned by their communities.
Ours is a culture that understands sexual access to women as a prerogative of male success, and reveres sexual force as a signal of men’s virility; ours is a culture that rewards women for enduring men’s violence and punishes them, often quite brutally, for objecting to it. In no honest assessment can Danny Masterson be said to have betrayed the values of his community when he raped those women: he enacted those values faithfully.
We have a profound cognitive dissonance about rape. It is formally prohibited, but effectively decriminalized; officially hated, but unofficially tolerated, minimized or even admired. Any woman who has reported her own rape, or even any feminist who has spent much time speaking out against it, is ushered into a hall of mirrors, where society’s hypocrisies and dishonest disavowals about sexual violence become monstrously apparent.
Every declaration that “we believe survivors” or that “sexual abuse is never okay” is immediately followed by a disqualifying “but”. Everyone says they abhor rape: almost everyone will make an exception for the rapes committed by their friends.
I do not doubt that Kutcher and Kunis believe that they oppose sexual violence; I have no doubt that they believe that they were being compassionate, rather than complicit, in speaking out on Masterson’s behalf. In their video, Kutcher and Kunis emphasize that their letters did not contradict the facts of the accusations: they believe the victims, they would have us think, but they still feel that Masterson is a good guy. That’s exactly the problem.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Every declaration that 'we believe survivors' or that 'sexual abuse is never okay' is immediately followed by a disqualifying 'but'
operatives in the state admit defeating Brown will be a “dogfight”, current polls have him up by just 0.4 percentage points over one possible opponent, the Ohio secretary of state, Frank LaRose. Both the Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball call his race a tossup.
Joe Manchin’s slide to the dark side and Kyrsten Sinema’s wildcard ways leave Democrats no room for error. If Brown loses, and takes the Democratic Senate with him, democracy hangs in the balance. Republicans will be free to appoint extremist judges, and shut down the government if they don’t get their way. And that’s ifBiden wins a second term. If he loses, the parade of horrors will be far, far worse.
Unlike fellow endangered conservative-state Democrats like Manchin and the Montana senator Jon Tester, Brown’s record is uncompromising on abortion rights and gun safety. Recent elections have proved that these are winning issues. To capture and grow this coalition, Brown must win re-election.
A fourth Brown term would also show Americans that this pro-union unicorn need not be so unique. Indeed, the Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman eked out his 2022 victory with a model similar to Brown’s: an unkempt, approachable guy from the rust belt who looks and talks like someone voters know.
Sherrod Brown is democracy’s canary in the coalmine. If he goes down next year, the country won’t be far behind. Democrats in Ohio and across the country must turn out for Brown – at fundraisers, campaign events and at the ballot box.
As we dive deeper into the 2024 election season, and the lunacy that will accompany the first presidential rematch since Eisenhower v Stevenson, the Democratic party must make reelecting Brown its highest priority.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation