Welcome back to the Dershow again, a prediction that I made in writing and on this show and on television has turned out to be true, namely that the Democratic leadership has made the same mistake.

I'm sorry, the Republican leadership has made the same mistake that the Democratic leadership made when they twice impeached Donald Trump and twice lost in the United States Senate.

Now, the Republican leadership in the House, Kevin McCarthy, has opened an investigation of possible impeachable offenses committed by the President of the United States, Joe Biden, who is a Democrat, tit for tat, weaponization of the impeachment provision. Hamilton would be turning over in his grave.

To McCarthy's credit, he didn't say that they were impeachable offenses. He said, look, there's a culture of corruption surrounding Biden, and then he pointed to Biden allegedly lying, not under oath, but lying and allegedly covering up for his son.

None of them are impeachable offenses. Let's again just remember the Constitution is very clear. The Democrats lied about it and said it wasn't clear. Now, the Republicans are going to lie about it and say it's unclear, but the Constitution is clear for anybody who wants to read it in terms of the text and the history.

I know I went back and read the entire history. The Constitution limits impeachment to conviction by the Senate of treason, which is defined in the Constitution, bribery, which is defined in statutory law and in common law, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Other, meaning crimes like treason and bribery, crimes like extortion, crimes like perhaps obstruction of justice covering up extortion or treason or crimes of that kind, but it doesn't apply to creating a culture of corruption.

And it doesn't apply to lying politically, even if all of these allegations are proved to be true. It doesn't apply to giving favorable treatment to the president's son in an investigation. Those are all reasons to vote against the president, just like the allegations made against Donald Trump were good reasons to vote against Donald Trump. I know they persuaded me to vote against him.

And I can easily imagine being persuaded to vote against the Democrat if there were allegations proved of a culture of corruption, but they're not impeachable offenses.

They do not subject the elected president of the United States to removal by a vote of the House of Representatives. Now McCarthy didn't call for a vote previously in many previous cases where impeachment has been sought.

First, there's a vote of the whole House opening up an impeachment inquiry and then certain powers are given by the House to the committees to go beyond the normal investigative function, but there was no vote here.

There was no vote here for two reasons, probably McCarthy himself wonders whether there is an impeachable offense, although he's used language suggesting he has a very broad view inconsistent with the view he took in the Republican leaders took when Trump was impeached.

And the other good reason is he doesn't have the votes. He would not have at the moment a majority to open up a formal impeachment investigation of Joe Biden.

Obviously Matt Gates would vote for it. He's the congressman from Florida who threatened essentially McCarthy saying, if you don't open up an investigation looking toward the impeachment of Joe Biden,

we're going to conduct a revolt against you now, not a revolt in the 14th Amendment terms, but a revolt in the sense that, as you know, McCarthy was barely elected speaker.

He squeaked through on, I don't remember what, but not on the first second or third vote.

And it's close as to whether he has a continuing majority and gates basically threatened him and said, look, unless you do this, I'm going to move for a vote.

And maybe you won't maintain your speaker status.

That was the implicit message. And so leader McCarthy took the easy way out.

He engaged in a compromise. He said, no, and I can have a vote.

We're not going to call for a formal impeachment investigation.

What we're going to do is empower committees to open an investigation, looking toward the possibility of impeachment.

...