House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing significant criticism after a 2019 video of him scolding Democrats for pursuing impeachment against former President Donald Trump resurfaced.
The video did not age well at all—and the reasons he provided at the time for opposing Trump's impeachment could very well be used against his own Biden impeachment inquiry today.
The video made the rounds again after the GOP-led House formalized an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, which has thus far failed to uncover wrongdoing from the President and has not received the full support of all Republicans in the chamber.
You can hear Johnson's remarks in the video below.
Johnson said:
"Members have called for removal based on a myriad of objections against [Trump]. Representative Al Green filed a resolution in the House for impeachment after Trump called for players kneeling during the national anthem to be fired. I mean, c'mon!"
"You don't like his political positions? Great! But you can't impeach a President because you don't like him. That's not how this system works. We're in a consitutional republic. There are rules here. There are standards."
"You don't get to make that decision. The voters of this country did and we have an election coming up in about 11 months. Let the people decide."
"Don't put yourselves in their place. You don't have the right to do it. You're not following the proper procedure. You're not doing this the right way."
Johnson went on to say that impeachment should remain "a rarely used constitutional device" and said it should not be used to remove "unpopular leaders."
He concluded:
"We get it. You don't like him. That doesn't mean you can banish him from the marketplace. You can't send him out of his businesses and say he can't hold a position of honor or trust."
"You don't get the right to do that. The people of this country do. We live in a republic! I'm so sick of this."
Johnson's hypocrisy was swiftly called out.
The inquiry, which accuses Biden of influence peddling, has been praised by members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, who have repeatedly failed in attempts to link the President to his son Hunter's business deals. The younger Biden has been the subject of GOP-led investigations into his business interests and in September was indicted on federal gun charges.
Earlier this week, USAToday published an op-ed from Johnson in which he defends an impeachment inquiry and says that the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees "will continue investigating the role of the president in promoting the alleged influence-peddling schemes of his family and associates, the orchestration of which reaped millions of dollars in payments from America’s foreign adversaries."
Johnson said House Republicans are prepared to go to court "to gather the evidence and provide transparency to the American people." He said, with no trace of irony, that he "served on the impeachment defense team of former President Donald Trump on both occasions when House Democrats abused the process."
Remarkably, when asked what crime they want to impeach Joe Biden over, they still, after months and months of investigations and unfounded allegations, have no answer. And they're not even trying to claim any wrongdoing during Biden's presidency.
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