Steve Bannon Pushes Plan to Impeach Biden as Trump Ally Faces Prison

Steve Bannon appears to be launching one more crusade before heading to prison on contempt of Congress charges.

Hours before the conservative provocateur and former adviser to former President Donald Trump was handed a four-month prison sentence by federal judge Carl Nichols on Friday morning, Bannon took to social media platform Gettr, where he endorsed comments by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pledging not to pursue a solely politically-motivated impeachment of President Joe Biden or other administration officials.

In an interview with Punchbowl News earlier this week, McCarthy, a California Republican, pushed back against pressure imposed by some of his GOP colleagues to impeach the president or members of his cabinet next year as whiplash for what conservatives saw as a politically vindictive series of impeachments against Trump, saying he did not see cause to bring impeachment proceedings "right now."

"You watch what the Democrats did," McCarthy told the outlet. "They all came out and said they would impeach before Trump was ever sworn in. There wasn't a purpose for it. If you spent all that time arguing against using impeachment for political purposes, you gotta be able to sustain exactly what you said."

Bannon—who has already floated speculation that Biden would be impeached for the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border and questionable business dealings that were outlined in content found on his son, Hunter's, laptop—concurred.

"Listen to exactly what McCarthy said —'we will not impeach for political purposes,'" Bannon wrote on Gettr. "WarRoom [his podcast] agrees —We must only impeach following strictly the guidelines of The Constitution— After deep and thorough investigations into the invasion of the Southern Border, Hunter Biden's Laptop from Hell, Fauci's lies during the pandemic, and many other investigations."

He continued: "Then and only then after finding high crimes can we then go forward with articles of impeachment— when the case is clear to the American people it is NOT political. And believe me when I say there will be impeachments and the American People will not simply support it but DEMAND it."

House Republicans have already been actively discussing the possibility for impeachment proceedings against Biden should they take control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections. Some, like Representative Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, have said on Bannon's podcast that impeachment is a "priority" for House Republicans in the next Congress.

Others, like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, have already made multiple efforts this Congress to bring articles of impeachment against the president, though they have gained little traction in a House of Representatives still firmly controlled by Democrats.

That's not to say the idea is off the table—even as some Republicans have sought to walk the line between courting the party's far-right elements while avoiding the precedent-setting whiplash of impeaching a president without cause.

Elise Stefanik, House Republican Conference chair, has called Biden "unfit to serve as president" on Twitter, who also suggested earlier this week that articles of impeachment could be brought against the president for allegations that he requested the Middle Eastern oil cartel, OPEC, from delaying a cut in oil production until after the midterm elections.

More moderate members like Representative Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, have stated they would not vote for the impeachment of any president without the allowance of due process—a key facet of Mace's decision not to vote for Trump's impeachment in the wake of last year's Capitol riot.

Other members of Congress like Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, have adamantly opposed the idea.

"I would argue we all know, at the end of the day, there's not going to be a conviction in the Senate," Cole told Politico of impeaching Biden. "It just injects poison into the system, causes a lot of turmoil."

Even Trump loyalists on Fox News who were largely critical of the former president's impeachments have expressed some hesitancy to bring a new series of impeachment hearings unless there were some clear cause to pursue it.

Appearing on colleague Stuart Varney's program earlier this week, Trump acolyte Brian Kilmeade, endorsed Varney's remarks that impeachment was a "rotten idea," and that it was a "waste of time" in an already bitterly divided Congress.

"Unless, of course, you have obscene corruption," Kilmeade added. "And I would love to see that cycle of 'we don't like that person so let's impeach him' stop. I mean, what they did to Trump—it's bad for the country."

Newsweek has contacted McCarthy and Stefanik's offices for comment.