GOP leaders silent on QAnon congresswoman's effort to impeach Biden

A day after a GOP congresswoman filed articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden, her party’s leadership still has not condemned her actions publicly.

But when Democrats impeached Donald Trump, Republican leaders decried their efforts as a “sham” and “divisive.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a racist QAnon conspiracy theorist, filed H. Res. 57 on Thursday, baselessly accusing Biden of “abuse of power by enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

None of the allegations she made involved conduct during Biden’s one-day long tenure in the White House. In fact, she announced her plan to introduce the articles days before he was even inaugurated.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Minority Whip Steve Scalise, and GOP caucus chair Liz Cheney have yet to speak out about Greene’s latest attempt to effectively overturn the 2020 election results.

The American Independent Foundation reached out to spokespeople for all three top House GOP leaders. They did not immediately respond.

But during the first impeachment of Donald Trump, all three leaders decried it as a Democratic “sham.” And during the recent second Trump impeachment, McCarthy and Scalise again emerged as vocal opponents.

After House Democrats accused Trump of abuse of power and obstruction after he pressured the Ukrainian president to dig up dirt on his political rivals, McCarthy accused them of mounting a “partisan and unprecedented” impeachment.

“Will we let impeachment become an exercise of raw political power, regardless if it damages our country? Or will we protect the proper grounds and process for impeachment now and in the future?” he asked his colleagues during a December 2019 floor speech.

Earlier this month, after Trump helped incite the deadly Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, McCarthy again opposed efforts to hold him accountable. He called efforts to again impeach the lame duck “divisive” and claimed that the American people did not want “retribution.”

Scalise opposed Trump’s first impeachment as a Democratic “vendetta” with a “nakedly partisan” process. He denounced the second as a “rushed” and “impractical” move that would “only serve to further divide a nation that is calling out for healing.”

Cheney was one of 10 House Republicans voting for the second impeachment, but she fiercely opposed the first as doing “grave damage” to the Constitution and country.

Despite Greene’s extremist record of racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism, House Republican leaders embraced her 2020 candidacy, even giving her National Republican Congressional Committee funds.

McCarthy urged reporters in November to give her “an opportunity” before judging her and praised having her in a “diverse” caucus.

Scalise said in September he would be eager to meet Greene, extolling her “passions” and her “very strongly” felt anti-abortion rights views.

Cheney also defended her, telling CNN that the GOP caucus must “make sure we get every Republican elected — she’s fighting hard and that’s an important seat for us to keep.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.