When Donald Trump’s impeachment was revealed Friday afternoon, congressional Republicans generally had a response: to circle the wagons around the former president and target anything related to President Joe Biden.
Many House Republicans denounced the impeachment as “weaponization“of the federal government against Biden’s presumptive most likely challenger for the presidency in 2024, suggested the indictment as election interference, political assassinationor called it a “sad day” in American history, apparently seeking to discredit the Justice Department and the The Biden administration in general.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to frame the impeachment as a double standard, arguing that Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “handled classified information after their time in office and were never charged.” calling for an investigation about how the matters in their documents were investigated.
He too quote-tweet a letter from House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, an ardent Trump supporter, to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who characterizes the investigation as a “miscarriage of justice” and repeatedly cites an interview with a retired senior official from the FBI that alleged “several anomalies.” ” in search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
In response, Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee posted a thread on Twitter publication of parts of the interview transcriptincluding a section in which D’Antuono stated that “probable cause for … lawful search of Mar-a-Lago is correct.”
One of the most prominent far-right members of Congress, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, said Biden “should be handcuffed and taken out of the White House for his crimes,” referring to allegations of bribery without foundations, while also referring to the issue of the House Judiciary letter.
For some, like Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., “armed justice” was suggested more literally. Just over an hour after the indictment had been opened, Biggs tweeted: “We have now reached a phase of war. An eye for an eye.”
In the meantime, the majority Democrats taken a similar touch“No one is above the law.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries released a joint statement Friday, beginning with that exact phrase.
“This prosecution must now proceed through the legal process, without any outside political or ideological interference,” the statement continued. “We encourage supporters and critics of Mr. Trump to let this case play out peacefully in court.”
