'Breach of Trust': GOP Pushes for Impeachment Against VP Harris
© AFP 2023 / KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI
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While no US vice president has ever been impeached, at least three presidents have been impeached by the US House including: President Andrew Johnson, President Bill Clinton, and President Donald Trump who was impeached in 2019 and 2021.
Last Tuesday, Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) filed articles of impeachment against US Vice President Kamala Harris as part of an increase in Republican attacks on the VP as she starts her presidential campaign. In part, the impeachment calls on what Republicans have said was Harris’ failure to secure the border.
The second article in the filing claims that Harris concealed US President Joe Biden’s mental well-being, and constituted a “breach of public trust” after she failed to invoke the 25th Amendment against Biden which would have made her acting president.
“Kamala Devi Harris has knowingly misled the people of the United States and the Congress of the United States, principally to obfuscate the physical and cognitive well-being of the President of the United States, Joe Biden,” the filing reads.
On Monday, Sputnik’s The Final Countdown spoke to the author of the filing, Representative Ogles. The businessman has been the US representative for Tennessee's fifth congressional district since last year. In the beginning of the interview, Steve Gill, a US attorney, asked Ogles about the likelihood of an investigation, taking into account that US House Republicans have started their summer break early.
“I was talking to the media right before we left and I said, you know, we're not done with our appropriations. We should stay and work during August until we get it done. So this idea that we just are dismissed for the month of August should be contingent upon getting the appropriations done, or in this case, also adjudicating these articles of impeachment,” the representative explained.
Despite the GOP leaders’ original schedule to continue work next week, the Republicans decided to cancel next week’s session and “sent lawmakers home for a six week summer recess with little to brag about to constituents and voters heading into the final months before the election,” MSNBC reported citing NBC News. The House will not return until September 9, which will leave them just three weeks to avert a government shutdown.
“I think it's important that we force this conversation, because, again, what we see here over and over again is that the media is complicit. They were complicit with the cover up of Joe Biden's mental state. Quite frankly, they've been complicit, until recently, in covering up the state of the southern border."
“Look[ing] at the state of play in our country, you know, there's been a willful breach of trust both with the southern border and by its mental state,” said Ogles.
On Wednesday, the House voted unanimously for a resolution to establish a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, which took place on July 13 during one of Trump’s campaign speeches.
Four hundred-sixteen members voted in favor of the resolution, while 16 members did not vote. The bipartisan committee will be made up of six Democrats and seven Republicans and will deliver their final report to the House by December 13. Beyond the task force, the Department of Homeland Security has also opened reviews into three aspects of the USSS’ planning and preparedness during the shooting.
“[Looking at] the breaches, the lack of security, the breakdown in protocols and communication that the Secret Service has, whether you like or dislike Trump, the outcome of that is that Biden is less safe now. Kamala Harris is less safe now,” he explained. “Someone like [former President] Barack Obama, who is a former president who would have a detail, is less safe. And the world was watching. The world saw.”
“And so I think that's why you saw a bipartisan unanimous vote on this issue is because the Secret Service, just like the FBI, they're storied institutions, we've got to restore the American people's trust in those institutions. And, right now, I don't trust the FBI to investigate this. I don't trust the Secret Service to investigate themselves. So we have to have this task force.”
Sputnik’s Ted Rall pressed Ogles on his effort to impeach the Vice President after he requested that she invoke the 25th amendment against Biden to have him removed from office on the grounds of his mental state; “Isn't there kind of a conflict between that and you're calling for her to be impeached? You're gonna impeach her at the same time that she's gonna pull the 25th on Joe? Then what?”
“You point out the fact, you make a call that, hey, there's a mechanism in place to hold the president accountable. And, keep in mind, if she were to invoke, or the cabinet were to invoke the 25th amendment, he could appeal to the House of Representatives, to Congress and a vote could be taken,” Ogles explained.
“So, she was given the opportunity to do the right thing to uphold her constitutional obligation. She didn't do it. So she can't point backwards and say, well, you didn't give me enough time to invoke the 25th. We sent a letter. We called her out. She did not take action. She's more worried about running for president, raising money and [laughing] instead of upholding her oath of office.”
According to a Wall Street Journal poll, Harris is trailing Trump 47% - 49%, but with a margin error of 31. But 44% of those who were asked if they had a favorable view of Harris said "yes", and the same percentage said "yes" about Trump as well.
