The Biden #RePeachment is a MAGA Failure of Imagination

Come on, guys! At least TRY to cobble together a factual basis for an impeachment that is 1) original, and/or 2) actually happened while Biden has been President, and/or 3) even a little entertaining (assuming they do actually wish to distract us from the #TrumpTrials, as I presume).

One can only conclude that Biden has been as careful as a cat in a field of eggshells to ensure the strict legality and propriety of EVERYTHING he’s done as President that a gang of rabid partisan hacks can’t find a SINGLE thing during his Presidency to lie about! They have to dig back more than 7 years – when Biden was Vice President in the Obama Administration – to invent anything to pick at obsessively.

I can only conclude this comes down to a lack of creativity on MAGA’s part: “Well, they impeached Trump on some shit to do with Ukraine – no! the first time! – so we gotta do the same. That’s the rule, right?” Give me a break. Invent an original conspiracy theory, guys; it’s not like you don’t have some gifted confabulists on your side.

Here is an excellent summary of just how utterly baseless the MAGA #RePeachment inquiry is, from Axios sent to me by our own AZBlueMeanie, who, while still on leave in Pepperland, can’t help himself (i.e. all emphasis was done by Blue):

House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Biden is predicated on allegations about the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor that have been debunked — under oath — by at least nine government witnesses.

The House will vote this week on formally authorizing the inquiry — the prelude to what many expect will become articles of impeachment against Biden for alleged bribery, abuse of power and obstruction.

• House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) confirmed as much last week, telling reporters that possible “impeachable offenses” mainly center on the alleged “quid pro quo” in Ukraine in early 2016.
• Republicans say then-Vice President Biden freelanced by withholding a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee until Ukraine fired prosecutor general Viktor Shokin — and that he did so to protect his son Hunter, who was on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

The facts surrounding the Bidens, Burisma and Shokin have been well-established over the course of two major congressional investigations: the first impeachment of former President Trump and a Senate probe led by Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

• Republicans frequently point to a 2018 video in which Biden boasts about withholding the loan guarantee, and say the timing is suspicious because Burisma executives had just asked Hunter Biden for help alleviating government pressure, according to his business partner Devon Archer.
• But Shokin’s deputy says the office was not investigating Burisma at the time, and the Senate report found no evidence that Hunter Biden’s board position — while highly unethical — influenced U.S. policy.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was one of four Trump impeachment witnesses who testified that it was “official U.S. policy” — supported by international stakeholders — to push for Shokin’s removal.

• Trump’s former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker — a Republican-called witness — testified that the allegations against Biden were “not credible” and that Shokin’s firing “was widely understood internationally to be the right policy.”
• Former State Department official George Kent testified that Shokin had undermined a U.S. program — funded with “taxpayer money” — to “build an independent investigator unit to go after corrupt prosecutors.”
• David Holmes, a former diplomat in Ukraine, testified that his understanding was that Shokin “was not at that time pursuing investigations of Burisma or the Bidens.”

At least five more State Department witnesses — Geoffrey Pyatt, Amos Hochstein, Victoria Nuland, David Wade and Antony Blinken — independently confirmed those facts in the 2020 Senate investigation.

• Three Republican senators also were among those who pushed for reforms to Shokin’s office in February 2016, a month before he was fired.
• In response to Shokin himself claiming Biden wanted him fired because he was investigating Burisma, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told Fox News that Shokin was “completely crazy.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) deflected last month when asked whether the witnesses who testified about Shokin’s ouster committed perjury or should be brought back for additional questioning.

• Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a member of the hardline Freedom Caucus, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that the GOP case for impeachment “rests heavily on a fictitious version of Shokin’s career.”
• Buck is believed to be the only House Republican publicly opposed to the impeachment inquiry, according to a Politico whip count.

Zachary Basu, Axios.com

More than just there being no ‘there’ there, one can only conclude that the MAGAs lack any imagination. Come on guys, impeach Biden for drinking baby blood to stay young (well, I guess that’s not very credible on his face…), or conspiring with President for Life Xi to makes us all ChiCom slaves by abolishing the dollar and forcing us use digital Yuan mined by Chinese children on treadmills… or something creative and engaging.

Another slog over ground covered by Senators Grassley and Johnson’s snooze-fest of an inquiry hardly seems likely to distract us all from the #TrumpTrials for 91 felony counts.

Do better, boys!