(WMR)—Some members of the incoming GOP-controlled House of Representatives and Senate are seriously considering impeaching President Obama. And they don’t believe they will face any adverse political consequences since one of the original House impeachment managers in the 1999 Senate trial of President Bill Clinton, Asa Hutchinson, is about to be sworn in as governor of Arkansas, Clinton’s home state.
Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) is the latest GOP congressman to seriously float the idea of an Obama impeachment. Others who have spoken of impeaching Obama are Representatives Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) (over the Benghazi affair), Mike Burgess (R-TX) (over Obama’s “agenda”), Blake Farenthold (R-TX) (over Obama’s birth certificate), and Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) (over Benghazi).
Barton said that impeachment “is a consideration” if Obama uses executive order privileges to grant legal status in the United States to undocumented aliens, many of them from Latin America. Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) are said to have been working with GOP members of the House to coordinate an Obama impeachment. One of the 1999 impeachment managers, Representative Steve Chabot (R-OH), continues to serve on the House Judiciary Committee, the panel that would have to approve any articles of impeachment against Obama. Chabot has been approached by some GOP members on the mechanisms of impeachment. In 1998 and 1999, GOP impeachment managers had to rely on details concerning the 1974 House Judiciary Committee impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon in order to proceed on the Clinton impeachment. Another one of the original managers from 1999, Lindsey Graham, is now a leading critic of Obama in the Senate.
Chabot, Graham, Cruz, and Lee, in addition to House Judiciary Committee members Chaffetz and Farenthold, are the key members to watch on the impeachment issue at the onset of the 114th Congress.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
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Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
