Just before 8 p.m. on Thursday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a video of herself at a town hall in her Georgia district declaring that she \u201cwill not vote to fund the government\u201d unless the House holds a vote to open an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.<\/p>\n
It took just 68 minutes for the White House to fire back with a blistering statement that such a vote would mean that House Republicans had \u201ccaved to the hard-core fringe of their party in prioritizing a baseless impeachment stunt over high-stakes needs Americans care about deeply,\u201d like drug enforcement and disaster relief.<\/p>\n
The White House, as it turns out, is not waiting for a formal inquiry to wage war against impeachment. With a team of two dozen lawyers, legislative liaisons, communications specialists and others, the president has begun moving to counter any effort to charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors with a best-defense-is-a-good-offense campaign aimed at dividing Republicans and taking his case to the public.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s team has been mapping out messaging, legal and parliamentary strategies for different scenarios. Officials have been reading books about past impeachments, studying law journal articles and pulling up old court decisions. They have even dug out correspondence between previous presidential advisers and congressional investigators to determine what standards and precedents have been established.<\/p>\n
At the same time, recognizing that any impeachment fight would be a political showdown heading into an election season, outside allies have been going after Republicans like Ms. Greene and Speaker Kevin McCarthy. A group called the Congressional Integrity Project has been collecting polling data; blitzing out statements, fact sheets and memos; and producing ads targeting 18 House Republicans representing districts that voted for Mr. Biden in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the Republicans ramp up their impeachment efforts, they\u2019re certainly making this a political exercise, and we\u2019re responding in kind,\u201d said Kyle Herrig, the executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project. \u201cThis is a moment of offense for Democrats. They have no basis for impeachment. They have no evidence. They have nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House preparations do not indicate that Mr. Biden\u2019s advisers believe an impeachment inquiry is inevitable. But advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal thinking said it was important to take on the prospect aggressively and expressed hope that the situation could be turned to their advantage.<\/p>\n
Republican congressional investigations have turned up evidence that Hunter Biden traded on his family name to generate multimillion-dollar deals, and a former partner, Devon Archer, testified that Mr. Biden would put his father on speakerphone with potential business clients to impress them.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Archer testified that the elder Mr. Biden only engaged in idle chitchat during such calls, not business, and no evidence has emerged that the president directly profited from his son\u2019s deals or used his power inappropriately while vice president to benefit his son\u2019s financial interests.<\/p>\n
Republicans have not identified any specific impeachable offenses, and some have privately made clear that they do not see any at the moment. The momentum toward an impeachment inquiry appears driven in large part by opposition to Mr. Biden\u2019s policies and is fueled by former President Donald J. Trump, who is eager to tarnish his potential rival in next year\u2019s election and openly frames the issue as a matter of revenge. \u201cEither IMPEACH the BUM, or fade into OBLIVION,\u201d he demanded of Republicans on his social media site this past week. \u201cTHEY DID IT TO US!\u201d<\/p>\n
That stands in sharp contrast to other modern impeachment efforts. When impeachment inquiries were initiated against Mr. Trump and Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton, there were clear allegations of specific misconduct, whether or not they necessarily warranted removal from office. In Mr. Biden\u2019s case, it is not clear what actions he has taken that would be defined as a high crime or misdemeanor.<\/p>\n
Mr. McCarthy, Republican of California, cited \u201ca culture of corruption\u201d within the Biden family in explaining on Fox News last weekend why he might push ahead with an impeachment inquiry. \u201cIf you look at all the information we\u2019ve been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Even if Republican investigators turned up evidence that Mr. Biden had done something as vice president to help his son\u2019s business, it would be the first time a president was targeted for impeachment for actions taken before he became president, raising novel constitutional issues.<\/p>\n
For now, though, it is hardly certain that Republicans would authorize an inquiry. Mr. McCarthy told Breitbart News on Friday that if they pursued such an inquiry, \u201cit would occur through a vote on the floor,\u201d not through a decree by him, and veteran strategists in both parties doubt he could muster the 218 votes needed to proceed.<\/p>\n
The speaker\u2019s flirtation with holding such a vote may simply be a way of catering to Ms. Greene and others on his right flank. He has used the thirst to investigate Mr. Biden as an argument against a government shutdown, suggesting that a budgetary impasse would stall House inquiries.<\/p>\n
But some Republicans have warned that a formal impeachment drive could be a mistake. Representative Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, has said that \u201cimpeachment theater\u201d was a distraction from spending issues and that it was not \u201cresponsible for us to talk about impeachment.\u201d Ari Fleischer, a White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, said impeachment could \u201cunleash an internal Republican civil war\u201d and if unsuccessful could lead to \u201cthe worst, biggest backfire for Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House has been building its team to defend against Republican congressional investigations for more than a year, a team now bracing for a possible impeachment inquiry. Richard Sauber, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed special counsel in the spring of last year, and Ian Sams, a longtime Democratic communications specialist, was brought on as spokesman for the White House Counsel\u2019s Office. Russell Anello, the top Democratic staff member for the House Oversight Committee, joined last year as well.<\/p>\n
After Republicans won control of the House in the November midterm elections, more people were added to handle the multitude of congressional investigations. Stuart Delery, the White House counsel who is stepping down this month, will be replaced by Ed Siskel, who handled Republican investigations into issues like the Benghazi terrorist attack for President Barack Obama\u2019s White House.<\/p>\n
A critical adviser for Mr. Biden will be his personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, one of the most veteran figures in Washington\u2019s legal-political wars. As a private lawyer, he advised the House Democratic leader during Mr. Clinton\u2019s impeachment and then the Senate Democratic leader during the subsequent trial, helping to shape strategies that kept Democrats largely unified behind their president. And Biden aides like Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed served in the Clinton White House at the time.<\/p>\n
Mr. Biden himself has seen four impeachment efforts up close during his long career in Washington. He was a first-term senator when Nixon resigned rather than face a seemingly certain Senate trial in 1974 and a fifth-term senator when he voted to acquit Mr. Clinton in 1999. It was Mr. Biden whom Mr. Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating, leading to the former president\u2019s first impeachment in 2019. And it was Mr. Biden\u2019s victory in 2020 that Mr. Trump tried to overturn with the help of a mob that attacked Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, leading to a second impeachment.<\/p>\n
The Clinton impeachment battle has provided some lessons for the Biden team, although the circumstances are significantly different and the political environment has shifted dramatically in the 25 years since then. Much as the Clinton White House did, the Biden White House has tried to separate its defense against Republican investigators from the day-to-day operations of the building, assigning Mr. Sams to respond mostly off camera to issues arising from the investigations rather than Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, during her televised briefings.<\/p>\n
As in the late 1990s, the strategy now is to paint Republicans as rabid partisans interested only in attacking the president of the other party out of political or ideological motives in contrast to a commander in chief focused on issues of importance to everyday voters, like health care and the economy.<\/p>\n
The approach worked for Mr. Clinton, whose approval ratings shot up to their highest levels of his two terms, surpassing 70 percent, when he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. Mr. Biden\u2019s approval ratings remain mired in the low 40s, but advisers think a serious impeachment threat would rally disaffected supporters.<\/p>\n
Mr. Herrig\u2019s Congressional Integrity Project, founded after last year\u2019s midterm elections, hopes to turn the impeachment drive against Republicans. His group\u2019s board chairman, Jeff Peck, is a longtime Biden ally, and it recently hired Kate Berner, the former White House deputy communications director.<\/p>\n
The group has teams in New York and California and plans to expand to other battleground districts. \u201cThis is a political loser for vulnerable Republicans,\u201d Mr. Herrig said. \u201cMcCarthy\u2019s doing the bidding of Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene and putting his majority at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n