Republican congressman drafts impeachment resolution over Biden’s Israel aid threat
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) is preparing to introduce articles of impeachment against President Biden over the pause on the shipment of some military weapons to Israel, arguing that it is similar to Donald Trump’s actions that led to his first impeachment in late 2019.
Mills, 43, submitted language to House counsel on Thursday for one article of impeachment that would charge Biden with “abuse of power,” Mills revealed on X, noting that he would “pursue action [Friday] morning.”
“Using the powers of his high office, President Biden solicited a ‘quid pro quo’ with the foreign government of Israel by withholding precision guided weapons shipments in order to try and extract military policy changes,” reads Mills’ resolution.
“President Biden sought to pressure the government of Israel to take steps by conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Israel,” it continues.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin informed Congress on Wednesday that a shipment of precision bombs destined for the Jewish state had been “paused.”
Hours later, in an interview with CNN, Biden announced that the US would stop sending certain military firepower to Israel if it invades Rafah, a densely populated city on the southern end of the Gaza Strip.
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“I made clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gotten into Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem,” the president said.
Mills argued that Biden’s warning to the US ally mirrors the accusation Trump, now 77, faced in 2019, when Democrats accused him of conditioning military aid to Ukraine on the announcement of an investigation into the Biden family.
“These types of actions are what President Trump was accused of and impeached over by Democrats,” Mills wrote on X. “They called it ‘Quid Pro Quo.’ Perhaps [it] should be renamed to ‘Quid Pro Joe.’”
To further illustrate the parallels, the congressman noted that large sections of his resolution against Biden were taken “verbatim” from the text of the 2019 articles of impeachment against Trump drafted by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY).
Biden, 81, is already the subject of an ongoing House impeachment inquiry related to his family’s overseas business dealings, which makes it unlikely that Mills’ resolution would reach even the investigative phase anytime soon, if ever.
However, a few Republicans and conservatives have already signed on to the push.