In a stunning move, Representative Cory Mills of Florida has formally filed articles of impeachment against President Biden over his decision to withhold offensive weapons aid to Israel during its conflict with Hamas. Mills, a first-term Republican, accuses Biden of “abuse of power,” alleging that he tried to force Israel into changing its own defense policies by leveraging lethal aid.
Mills’ legislative text, first obtained by Fox News Digital, charges that Biden “used the powers of the presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States and its ally Israel.” It specifically cites Biden’s comments in a CNN interview on Wednesday night, in which he said that he would not supply Israel with weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, a densely populated city in the southern Gaza Strip.
Biden made these comments as Israel prepared for a possible ground invasion of Rafah, which is currently home to more than a million Palestinians who fled other parts of the Gaza Strip. Biden said that Israel would continue to receive U.S. support for its defensive systems, like the Iron Dome, but that he would not provide weapons that could be used in an offensive operation against Rafah.
Mills and other Republicans have drawn comparisons between Biden’s comments on Israel and former President Donald Trump’s leveraging of lethal aid to Ukraine unless Kyiv announced an investigation into the Bidens. They argue that Biden is pressuring Israel, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, in the same way that Trump pressured Ukraine.
“Joe Biden is pressuring Israel, our biggest ally in the Middle East, by pausing their funding that has already been approved in the House, if they don’t stop all operations with Hamas. It’s a very clear message, ‘this for that,'” Mills said on Thursday.
“These are the same accusations made against President Trump, which resulted in his impeachment by Democrats. The same must happen for Joe Biden, which is why we’re drawing up articles of impeachment now.”
The White House has dismissed the impeachment push as “ridiculous,” arguing that Biden is making decisions in the best interests of the United States and its allies.
A White House official told Fox News Digital on Thursday that “senior administration officials had already made multiple public statements about Rafah similar to the President’s, including that we are also ensuring Israel gets every dollar appropriated in the supplemental. Trump failed to spend dollars appropriated by Congress that he was legally required to spend. This is about a purchase made by a foreign government and our decision whether to deliver that purchase right now, which could enable an operation we’ve publicly and privately objected to.”
White House national security communications adviser John Kirby also told reporters on Thursday that “as the President said, Israel has not yet launched such an operation, so he was talking about what would happen in the future if they did. That is a choice Israel will have to make. We hope they don’t. We will keep working with them to develop alternative approaches that we think have a better chance of strategic success and a better chance of eliminating the threat that Israeli people still face from Hamas.”
It is highly unlikely that the impeachment push will reach the level of a Senate trial, as the House’s ongoing impeachment inquiry into Biden is still searching for smoking-gun evidence amid accusations of improper behavior and bribery, all of which the White House has denied. However, it shows the sky-high tensions that have taken over Washington amid Israel’s war on Hamas after the terrorist group’s October 7 attack.
