As Trump Trial Ends, Republicans Already Eyeing Biden Impeachment

As the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump wraps up this week, some lawmakers on the Hill are already looking to the next impeachment – and some Republicans already have their eyes on former Vice President Joe Biden.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said that if Biden were to win the White House this fall, he would open himself up immediately to an impeachment inquiry. Ernst explained that such a move would be based on the former vice president’s time “assigned to take on Ukrainian corruption yet turning a blind eye to Burisma because his son was on the board making over a million dollars a year.”

The remarks of the senator from Iowa refer to allegations made by President Trump and others that Biden’s position in President Barack Obama’s administration was used as leverage so that his son, Hunter Biden, could serve as a well-paid executive with the Ukrainian energy company.

In many ways, these charges levelled against the Bidens helped precipitate the impeachment proceedings against Trump. Last year, an anonymous whistleblower filed a complaint that suggested Trump and his team were seeking to withhold military aid intended for Ukraine in exchange for a promise from that country’s authorities to investigate the Bidens. Democrats on the Hill have maintained that this was done less out of an interest in fighting corruption and more out of a desire to dig up dirt on a political rival.

In her Bloomberg interview, Ernst said that after the trial of President Trump, “this door of impeachable whatever has been opened. Joe Biden should be very careful.”

While Democrats in Washington seem to have largely dismissed the corruption allegations against the Bidens as unsubstantiated, linking the presidential hopeful to any hint of impropriety could very well have succeeded in hamstringing Biden’s campaign, at least to some degree.

Biden has been gradually slipping in the polls, both nationally and in important battleground states. At the same time, the former vice president has also struggled to address his son’s time in Ukraine with voters. In one particularly infamous incident, Biden came to verbal blows with a voter in Iowa when questioned about his son, with the candidate calling the man a “damn liar.”

While Ernst’s suggestion that the senior Biden could be impeached is currently a far fetched notion – as not only will it depend on how the Senate and House are configured after the election but it is also unclear if this would be a valid ground for impeachment – it does serve to undermine Biden’s campaign and stoke Democrats’ fears about having their own scandal-laden president.