Republicans seize Senate, gaining full control of Congress

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Only the Democrats and MSNBC were really talking about impeachment.

Democrats and MSNBC, eh?

Suggestions of impeachment

In October 2010, prior to the elections in which Republicans won control of the House, Jonathan Chait published an article in The New Republic called "Scandal TBD" where he predicted that if Republicans were to win control of the House, and Barack Obama were to win re-election in 2012, the Republicans would try to impeach Obama and use any reason possible as pretext.^[4]

2010–12

In May 2010, Republican Darrell Issa of California stated that the allegation that the White House had offered Pennsylvania Representative Joe Sestak a job to persuade Sestak to drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary election against Arlen Specter "is one that everyone from Arlen Spector to ####### Morris has said is in fact a crime, and could be impeachable".^[5] With the possibility of becoming chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in January 2011, Issa said in October 2010 that the committee would not seek to impeach Obama.^[6]

In August 2011, Republican Congressman Michael C. Burgess of Texas stated that the impeachment of Barack Obama "needs to happen" in order to prevent Obama from "pushing his agenda". Burgess did not mention any grounds for impeachment.^[7] In June 2012, Senator Jon Kyl said on the Bill Bennett radio show that "impeachment is always a possibility" when discussing the Obama Administration policy on immigration.^[8]

May 2013: James Inhofe, Benghazi attack

In May 2013, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma stated that President Obama "could be impeached over what he alleged was a White House cover-up after last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya".^[2] Inhofe said that "of all the great cover-ups in history—the Pentagon papers, Iran-Contra, Watergate, all the rest of them—this ... is going to go down as most egregious cover-up in American history".^[2] Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah also stated in an interview that impeachment was "within the realm of possibilities" with regard to the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, Libya, later clarifying that "it's not something I'm seeking" and that "I'm not willing to take that off the table. But that's certainly not what we're striving for."^[9]

August 2013: Tom Coburn, Blake Farenthold, Kerry Bentivolio

In August 2013, Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma responded to a questioner in a town hall meeting, who had asserted that President Obama was failing to carry out his constitutional responsibilities, by saying that "you have to establish the criteria that would qualify for proceedings against the president... and that's called impeachment".^[10][11] Coburn added, "I don't have the legal background to know if that rises to 'high crimes and misdemeanors', but I think you're getting perilously close".^[10] Coburn did not specify what grounds he felt would support impeachment, but NBC News noted that Coburn "mentioned that he believes Department of Homeland Security officials have told career USCIS employees to 'ignore' background checks for immigrants". Coburn mentioned no evidence that substantiated his belief.^[10]

At a town hall meeting with constituents, Congressman Blake Farenthold said that Obama should be impeached due to issues with Obama's birth certificate. Farenthold said that he thinks that "the House is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue."^[12]

On August 19, 2013, Republican Congressman Kerry Bentivolio stated that if he could write articles of impeachment, "it would be a dream come true". To help in achieving that goal, he retained experts and historians.^[13][14]

December 2013

On December 3, 2013, the House Judiciary committee held a hearing on the President that was formally titled "The President's Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws", which has been viewed as an attempt to begin justifying impeachment proceedings.^[15]

Public debate over impeachment demands

In terms of background, U.S. public opinion widely opposed efforts made to impeach previous Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. CNN Polling Director Keating Holland has stated that their organization found that 69% opposed impeaching President Bush in 2006.^[3]

According to a July 2014 YouGov poll, 35% of Americans believe the president should be impeached, including 68% of Republicans.^[16] Later that month, a CNN survey found that about two thirds of adult Americans disagreed with impeachment efforts. The data showed intense partisan divides, with 57% of Republicans supporting the efforts compared to only 35% of independents and 13% of Democrats.^[3]

The convention of the South Dakota Republican Party voted in a 196-176 resolution to call for the impeachment of Obama based on his action to release five detainees from Guantanamo Bay in order to free Bowe Bergdahl from his Taliban captors.^[17][18] Former Congressmember Allen West also expressed the view that the prisoner exchange that brought the release of Bowe Bergdahl was grounds for impeachment.^[19]John Dean, former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon, criticized the movement to impeach Obama as "insanity," arguing that Republican demands for impeachment are grounded in political disagreements rather than actual impeachable offenses. "Partisans promoting and pushing impeachment as a political solution to being out of power seem to forget that what comes around goes around. These people are not conservatives, who by definition seek to protect the system; rather they are radicals who are gaming our constitutional system," he wrote.^[20]

On July 8, 2014 the former Governor of Alaska and the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 Presidential election Sarah Palin publicly called for Obama's impeachment for "purposeful dereliction of duty".^[21] In a full statement, she has said: “It’s time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment.”^[22][23] She first expressed her views on the blogsite BigGovernment.com^[24] and she has also appeared in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity on his show Hannity.^[25]

A number of prominent Republicans have rejected calls for impeachment, including House Speaker John Boehner, Sen. John McCain and Rep. Blake Farenthold. McCain said impeachment would be a distraction from the 2014 election, and that if "we regain control of the United States Senate we can be far more effective than an effort to impeach the president, which has no chance of succeeding." Farenthold said that impeachment would be "an exercise in futility."^[26]

Boehner put to vote an authorization for the House of Representatives to file a lawsuit against President Obama for delaying the implementation of the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Political commentators have speculated that he proposed this lawsuit to divert recent Republican calls for impeachment, which would delight Democrats if pursued. In the words of Clarence Page in a Chicago Tribune editorial about calls for impeachment, "Democrats can barely conceal their glee. It's hard to think of anything that would give a bigger boost to the Democrats".^[27]

Roll Call's David Hawkings likewise described the calls for impeachment as "politically problematic" for Republicans. Hawkings noted that the plan for suing Obama sends a "decidedly mixed message" since Republicans themselves previously "passed legislation specifically written to codify the president’s employer mandate delay". He also criticized the move as not likely to have legal standing since the plaintiffs would have to demonstrate that "they’ve been tangibly harmed" beyond the "loss of political or institutional clout". Additionally, the lawsuit would not be filed until more than a year after the President issued the postponement of the employer mandate, and the lawsuit might also be considered moot by then because the postponement may have already expired. With "almost no chance for even a preliminary resolution before the midterm elections", Hawkings concluded the intent of Republicans is not a successful lawsuit but rather an opportunity for focusing their "red meat rhetoric" and "venting their bloodlust" before the elections.^[28]