Joe Biden Impeachment Calls Grow Over Pseudonym Emails

Colorado Republican Representative Lauren Boebert is urging fellow GOP lawmakers to impeach President Joe Biden after a filing by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) revealed 82,000 pages of emails he may have sent or received using pseudonymous accounts.

The court filing was made as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the conservative nonprofit organization Southeastern Legal Foundation.

Biden's use of email accounts under pseudonyms during his time as vice president gathered increased scrutiny in August, as Republicans ramped up their efforts to investigate the business dealings of the president and his son, Hunter Biden. The White House has repeatedly denied that Biden had any involvement in his son's business affairs.

But many Republicans—especially MAGA lawmakers like Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia—are convinced of the opposite. Though they have failed to provide crucial evidence until now, they're set on proving their claims.

The GOP-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is seeking unredacted emails from that time that relate to Ukraine and natural gas company Burisma.

Newsweek contacted the White House and Boebert's press office for comment by email on Wednesday.

Boebert, a MAGA Republican and member of the hardline Freedom Caucus, has previously filed articles of impeachment against Biden for alleged "high crimes and misdemeanors" related to illegal immigration at the border with Mexico.

After she used a privileged resolution to force a snap vote on the articles, a majority of the House voted to refer the matter to the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, which would have to open an inquiry. That prevented an immediate decision on whether to initiate impeachment proceedings.

Following news of the thousands of emails Biden could have sent or received using pseudonymous email accounts, Boebert doubled down on her calls to impeach the president.

"It's time to finish what we started and impeach this Commander and Thief," she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday.

Several House Republicans appear to be convinced that Biden will be impeached soon. In an exclusive interview with newly elected speaker Mike Johnson and several House Republicans conducted by Sean Hannity, the Fox News host asked the room how many people thought they were headed towards impeaching the president. Everyone in the room appeared to put their hands up.

House Republicans have a narrow majority in Congress, and it isn't clear whether they'll have enough votes to impeach Biden. It's also not clear what the exact content of the emails found by NARA is—and whether they contain any damning information at all.

Some remain skeptical.

"Just when you think @HouseGOP shenanigans can't get dumber they start fussing about email 'pseudonyms'," Ian Sams, White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, wrote on X.

"Newsflash: government leaders for decades have used aliases to avoid spam & hacking. Did they think he was just joe dot biden @? LOL Wonder what some Congressmen's emails are!" he added.

NARA said that due to the volume of the results following the Southeastern Legal Foundation's request, "which seeks copies of all emails in three separate accounts over an eight-year period, the volume of potentially responsive records is necessarily large." It added that NARA and the Southeastern Legal Foundation are currently negotiating a way to speed up the process and narrow the results, according to the court filing.

The two have asked the court to set a December 8 deadline for them to submit a joint status report.

"Nothing the GOP has offered in terms of evidence against Joe Biden so far looks remotely like it meets the high threshold of 'high crimes and misdemeanors.' Lots of shady deals? Almost certainly. But a smoking gun? Not yet, at least," Thomas Gift, the founding director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, told Newsweek.

"Of course, that doesn't mean that opponents of the White House won't keep putting their foot on the impeachment gas, despite hitting blockade after blockade," he continued. "With the right-wing emboldened after ousting Kevin McCarthy last month, there's still momentum for pushing ahead with impeachment despite the possibility for embarrassment."

The big question, said Gift, is "how far new speaker Mike Johnson will throw his weight behind the effort, rather than continuing to take a wait-and-see approach."