Former Republican lawmaker Trent Lott, who was on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment investigation of Richard Nixon and the Senate Majority Leader during the Bill Clinton impeachment trial, has a stark warning for his party: Don't impeach President Joe Biden. It's going to backfire.
Lott, a Mississippi politician who was a towering figure in Republican politics for decades, exclusively told The Messenger that he believes a revenge-based impeachment would be a disaster.
"Don't do it," he said. Rather, he said, Republicans in the House should spend "all day, every day" on policymaking. “The main thing to do is to hopefully get their work done and elect a different president.”
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Lott added that other impeachment efforts, like that against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), are similarly a dead end. “Look, Mayorkas is terrible. The border is a disaster. But they have other work to do.”
The Clinton impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky infidelity scandal, which was pushed by the Republican Party in the late stages of that presidency, was widely considered to have been a political disaster for Republicans, with Clinton actually emerging from acquittal with sky-high approval ratings. Lott himself ultimately had to step down from GOP leadership after he generated outrage for comments appearing to praise segregation.
The Biden impeachment inquiry, which was authorized in the House at the end of last year, stems from allegations that Biden laundered international bribes through his son Hunter's foreign business ventures. So far, no evidence has emerged that the president was ever involved in his son's companies, as even GOP-backed witness testimony doesn't support this.
