A freshman member of Congress introduced articles of impeachment Thursday against President Biden, saying he had abused the power of his office while serving as vice president under former President Barack Obama.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) – who has been the source of controversy over her beliefs in multiple conspiracies – introduced the articles exactly one day after Biden took the oath of office. As of Friday, the articles did not have any co-sponsors.
“President Joe Biden is unfit to hold the office of the Presidency,” Greene said. “His pattern of abuse of power as President Obama’s Vice President is lengthy and disturbing. President Biden has demonstrated that he will do whatever it takes to bail out his son, Hunter, and line his family’s pockets with cash from corrupt foreign energy companies.”
The text of the articles were not yet public, but a press release from Greene’s office alleged Biden had enabled “bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors” by “allowing his son to influence the domestic policy of a foreign nation and accept various benefits – including financial compensation – from foreign nationals in exchange for certain favors.”
My statement on introducing Articles of Impeachment against President @JoeBiden: pic.twitter.com/1mq7QRBbTX
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) January 21, 2021
Some Republicans have urged the party to distance itself from Greene for her embrace of conspiracy theories. She recorded a lengthy video in 2017 siding with the debunked QAnon conspiracy theory, saying the theory is “something worth listening to and paying attention to.”
This week, multiple outlets reported that Greene has embraced other conspiracy theories, too, including ones claiming that the 2001 terrorist attacks were an “inside job” and that the Parkland and Sandy Hook mass shootings were staged. When a commenter promoted those conspiracy theories on her Facebook page in 2018 – saying 9/11 “was done by our own Gov” and that “None of the School shootings were real” – Greene agreed with the commenter and wrote, “That is all true.” More than 2,700 people died in the 2001 terrorist attacks. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 left 27 dead, including 20 children. The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2018 left 17 dead.
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace (S.C.) reportedly got into a text message debate with Greene this month and called her a “literal QAnon lady trying to deny she’s a QAnon lady.”
Republican Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) wrote in a column in The Atlantic this month that the party must distance itself from Greene and others who embrace conspiracy theories.
“She’ll keep making fools out of herself, her constituents, and the Republican Party,” Sasse wrote. “If the GOP is to have a future outside the fever dreams of internet trolls, we have to call out falsehoods and conspiracy theories unequivocally. We have to repudiate people who peddle those lies.
Sasse added, “We can dedicate ourselves to defending the Constitution and perpetuating our best American institutions and traditions, or we can be a party of conspiracy theories, cable-news fantasies, and the ruin that comes with them. We can be the party of Eisenhower, or the party of the conspiracist Alex Jones. We can applaud Officer Goodman [the hero in the attack on the capitol] or side with the mob he outwitted. We cannot do both.”
Related:
5 Things Christians Should Know about QAnon
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Dustin Chambers/Stringer
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
