Republicans proceeding with attempts to impeach President Joe Biden would be a "poor decision," GOP strategist Terry Sullivan warned on Sunday.
Republicans in Washington, D.C., have long floated the possibility of pursuing impeachment proceedings against Biden, even as the proposed grounds for such actions have been criticized by some as flimsy. Some lawmakers, like the staunchly MAGA-aligned Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, have been pushing for the idea since the president took office in 2021.
More recently, Republicans have seized on allegations that Biden was improperly involved in his son Hunter's overseas business deals as a pretense for impeachment. The president has denied on multiple occasions that he was ever involved in his son's business dealings. A purported witness, Devon Archer, however, recently testified under oath in a closed-door meeting before the House Oversight Committee that Biden was put on speakerphone during one of Hunter's business calls while he was vice president. Critics have countered these arguments as well, casting doubt on the legitimacy of the claims and questioning how an official can be impeached for alleged conduct that occurred before they took office.
On Sunday, Sullivan, a co-founder of the Firehouse Strategies consulting firm who notably worked on the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Marco Rubio, appeared on CBS News' Face the Nation. During his appearance, he urged Republicans against trying to impeach Biden, citing the historical trends associated with past efforts.
"I think the Speaker [Kevin McCarthy] is sober enough to realize this is not a great long-term political play," Sullivan said. "But he's got to appease the base within his caucus, and that's an issue here, and we've seen that on both sides. These impeachments...dating back to [former President Bill] Clinton do not help the party that is doing the impeaching. Historically speaking, the beneficiary of it is the president who is getting impeached. And so, I would caution Republicans on this. Going after Biden seems like a really poor decision politically."
Clinton's 1998 impeachment occurred in his second term, meaning he was not eligible for reelection and could not reap the benefits Sullivan claimed. However, the Democratic Party did gain seats in the House and Senate in the subsequent election cycle.
Following his first impeachment in 2020, former President Donald Trump was voted out of office, potentially conflicting with Sullivan's argument, though any number of other mitigating factors could also have been at play. Republicans, however, also underperformed in the 2020 and 2022 elections following Trump's two impeachments.
Newsweek reached out to political science experts via email for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more
