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A GOP Senator warned that a 'President Joe Biden' could be impeached over Ukraine 'the day after he would be elected'

Feb 3, 2020, 22:53 IST
APJoe Biden is coming under criticism from Turkish President Erdogan.
  • In an interview with Bloomberg News, Republican Senator Joni Ernst said that Joe Biden could be impeached by the GOP if he is elected in 2020.
  • Ernst warned Biden to "be very careful" about what he's asking for since Trump's impeachment has "opened" the door to more impeachable offenses.
  • Ernst said Biden could be impeached for debunked claims that Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin was fired for investigating Burisma, a company in which Biden's son held a board seat.
  • Biden responded that Ernst's comments only "reinforced" his previous claims that Trump's investigation into him shows that Trump was intimidated by Biden as a 2020 presidential contender.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa sent a warning to presidential hopeful Joe Biden to "be very careful what he's asking for," saying he could face immediate impeachment if he were to be elected to the office.

"Joe Biden should be very careful what he's asking for because, you know, we can have a situation where if it should ever be President Biden, that immediately, people, right the day after he would be elected would be saying, 'Well, we're going to impeach him," Ernst told Bloomberg News in an interview on Sunday.

The GOP senator claimed that Republicans could move to impeach a "President Biden" for his role in tackling corruption in Ukraine under the Obama Administration in which he turned "a blind eye to Burisma because his son was on the board making over a million dollars a year," Ernst said. (Biden made, at most, $50,000 a month while serving on Burisma's board).

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She also suggested that the House Democrats' impeachment of Trump over his calls with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky had "opened" the door and lowered the bar for impeachable offenses.

In 2014, the former vice president was sent by then-President Barack Obama to tackle the rampant corruption in Ukraine. The same year, his son, Hunter Biden, joined the board of Burisma Holdings, one of Ukraine's largest independent natural gas companies, and sat on its board until 2019.

After the whistleblower complaint revealed President Donald Trump had withheld military aid from Ukraine, Trump and his lawyer Rudy Guiliani claimed - without evidence - that Joe improperly leveraged his role as vice president to help oust Ukraine's top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to protect Hunter from getting caught up in corruption investigations.

However, the claim has been debunked as Joe Biden was one of many leaders from the US and Western European powers calling for Shokin's termination, according to the New York Times.

The idle threat comes just before Monday's highly-anticipated Iowa caucuses, the first major contest of the United States presidential primaries. But Joe Biden took the comments as "reinforcement" of his previous claims that Trump's investigation show he was intimidated by Biden as a 2020 presidential contender.

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"She just reinforces everything that was the reason why the president was being impeached: They very much don't want to face me obviously," Biden told the Des Moines Register. "I've never seen a sitting president and his allies this frightened about who may be the nominee."

According to the Register, Biden received thunderous applause when encouraging Iowans at an event to "ruin Joni Ernst's night" by caucusing for him.

Ernst's warning comes after a week of sparring between her and Biden. Ernst previously questioned whether the Senate impeachment trial may persuade Iowas to decide against caucusing for Biden. In response, the Democratic presidential candidate quipped that the impeachment trial for Trump was a "political hit job to try to smear me because he is scared to death to run against me and he has good reason to be concerned."

Ernst did not immediately reply to Business Insider's request for comment. However, Brook Ramlet, a senior adviser to Ernst, told the Register that her comments were "hypothetical" and that she never said she thinks Biden should be impeached.

"She said that because of how House Democrats have lowered the standards of impeachment if Biden wins, there could be people calling for it," Ramlet said in an email to the Register on Sunday.

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Watch the full interview with Sen. Joni Ernst on Bloomberg News>>>

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