Top Senate Republicans have signaled that it’s very unlikely that President Joe Biden’s classified documents case rises to the level of an impeachable offense.
“I don’t think you want to get into where it’s a tit for tat, every two years or four years you’re dealing with impeachment proceedings in the House and Senate,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 2 Republican in the upper chamber, told The Hill. “There has to be a really good reason, obviously, the constitutional reasons and grounds for that. So we’ll see where it goes.”
And another member of the leadership team, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), was asked about impeachment. “No,” was his response, according to the outlet.
When asked Tuesday about whether the document case qualifies as an impeachable offense, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dismissed the question.
“I don’t have an answer to that hypothetical. I do think that the Justice Department seems to be willing to treat everybody the same and to try to retrieve the documents, and obviously it’s not a great idea to take classified documents away from the archives. We’ll see how they continue to handle it,” he said.
Lawyers for Biden since early January have confirmed that classified documents from when he was either a senator or vice president were found at his office and residences. Attorney General Merrick Garland has announced a special prosecutor, former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur, will investigate the case.
“This actually might be an impeachable offense. If there’s a high crime and misdemeanor standard, which there is, this is the closest thing to one in recent years,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), according to the outlet. “If the special counsel comes up with anything, realizing [Biden’s] a sitting president, I suppose they could draft up what would become articles of impeachment, depending on what they find.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) mounted a defense of Biden while speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday. His remarks came on the same day that a lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence said that classified materials were found at his home in Indiana.
“I’ve known President Biden a long time,” Graham said. “I’d be shocked if there’s anything sinister here.”
The comments come as the House Judiciary and Oversight committees have conducted investigations into the classified documents that were discovered in Biden’s office in Washington and his private Delaware residence. A lawyer over the past weekend confirmed that FBI officials searched his home in Delaware last week and discovered more classified materials.
The latest discovery of documents prompted public concern among Senate Democrats, some of whom have said it warrants a full investigation.
“You have to get the answers to the questions before you reach a judgment,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who is running for reelection in two years, told Politico. “If it’s a handful of documents and they’re not very serious, and maybe they were once classified but they’re not anymore, and there’s a good explanation for why he had them—but you don’t know the answer to those questions.”
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said that the finding “diminishes the stature of any person who is in possession of it, because it’s not supposed to happen.”
“Whether it was the fault of a staffer or an attorney, it makes no difference,” he told CNN on Sunday. “The elected official bears ultimate responsibility,” the Illinois lawmaker added.
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Biden’s lawyer, Bob Bauer, said that the recent classified documents and “surrounding materials” were dated from Biden’s time in the Senate, where he represented Delaware from 1973 to 2009. Other materials found last week were from his tenure as vice president between 2009 and 2017, Bauer told news outlets.
“At the outset of this matter, the president directed his personal attorneys to fully cooperate with the Department of Justice,” Bauer said. “Accordingly, having previously identified and reported to DOJ a small number of documents with classification markings at the president’s Wilmington home.”
When asked about the case, Biden told reporters in California that he believes he did nothing wrong.
“There is no there, there,” the president said last Thursday.
Again, Biden was asked Wednesday about the latest developments in the case while he was making an announcement confirming the United States would send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. He did not respond to any questions and walked out of the room.
“Top Senate Republicans have signaled that it’s very unlikely that President Joe Biden’s classified documents case rises to the level of an impeachable offense.”
It is more likely that the Republicans can impeach puppet Joe Biden on other of Biden’s criminal activities that can be easily proven.
Just add it to the list of his many crimes as additional weight of the stones he has already hung about his neck. Leave no stone unturned!
IF having documents, in UNSECURE LOCATIONS, when he was legally NOT ALLOWED TO EVEN have many of them, is not impeachable, WHAT Exactly is impeachable??
“I don’t think you want to get into where it’s a tit for tat,?,,,,,then act like Trump’s staged document abuse that was setup to be used to trade off what Biden had been doing years and let his crimes and convictions stand alone on their own merits of misery. EVERY time the accused Trump of something, it was because they the actively guilty Democrat establishment had been engaging in it for years, so they figure if they can make their opponents suspicious of the same behavior, they could trade their real crimes for the imagined conjured up ones of others that never happened, then it’s back to Establishment corruption as usual with their rich continuing to get richer and more powerful while WE THE PEOPLE financially and morally continue to wilt in the heat of their hidden corruptions. Let the guilty pay the price regardless of party and let the cleansing light of truth prevail and the hell with what the media thinks or says. Those who speak the loudest about not convicting are most likely the very ones with the dirty fingernails themselves. Follow the money, follow the enablers. Missing documents indicate crimes covered up or opportunity to blackmail or more money laundering.
The weak link to saving this country from destruction is the Republican Party itself.
True dat.. WE need to get them all, replaced with folks, WHO HAVE A BLOODY SPINE…
“Top Senate Republicans have signaled that it’s very unlikely that President Joe Biden’s classified documents case rises to the level of an impeachable offense.
“I don’t think you want to get into where it’s a tit for tat, every two years or four years you’re dealing with impeachment proceedings in the House and Senate,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 2 Republican in the upper chamber, told The Hill. ”
Really?? In Biden’s case, it is hardly a tit-for-tat—this thing runs really deep. Anyway, I am over impeachment—he flat out needs to be booted out of office.
IMO all this is does, is show that the SENATE GOP is too SPINELESS…
I don’t believe anyone really wants a President Harris, regardless…
IMPEACH Her too!!
It won’t be the idea that he had the documents, it will be what is contained therein about corruption and dealings with foreign governments and questionable deals made that will bring him down!