President Joe Biden’s unwillingness to stop the border crisis is an impeachable offense that eclipses the issues surrounding his ties to his family’s alleged influence peddling, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee says. 

“Just on the border alone, we have a commander in chief that is operating in high crimes and misdemeanors because he is not securing our homeland,” Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., told The Daily Signal. “That—even aside from the bribery element—the Constitution sets up those three elements of treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors for impeachment.”

The House voted last week to formalize an impeachment inquiry into Biden as three of its committees—Oversight and Accountability, Ways and Means, and Judiciary—investigate allegations of corruption and influence peddling.

Brecheen points to Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution, which says: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion.”

“The bribery element is real. I think there are billows of smoke coming out, and there is fire,” Brecheen said, referring to the probe of the Biden family’s overseas business deals in China, Ukraine, Romania, and elsewhere. 

“For me,” the Oklahoma Republican added, “I start with the belief that when you violate the clear reading of Article 4 Section 4, which guarantees to every state a republican form of government, a republic, and to protect against an invasion, we have an invasion.”

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Conservative legal commentators—among them radio and TV host Mark Levin, former chief of staff to Reagan administration Attorney General Edwin Meese, and Andrew McCarthy, a columnist for National Review who was a federal prosecutor in New York—previously have said that Biden’s failure to enforce border law is impeachable. However, they didn’t specifically reference an “invasion.”

On his Sunday night show on the Fox News Channel, and previously, Levin suggested applying Article 2 Section 3 of the Constitution, which states that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” 

McCarthy has said that not protecting the nation’s southern border amounts to “dereliction of duty” by Biden. 

The Biden administration currently is allowing about 10,000 illegal border crossings per day, including military-age males. Meanwhile, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities have been reported to be nearly empty because of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 policies. 

The three House committees are investigating potential corruption and influence peddling, and what role Joe Biden played, as vice president to President Barack Obama and a pending presidential candidate, in helping to bring in tens of millions in foreign money to his family’s shell companies. 

The committees have not announced an investigation of the border crisis, however. 

House investigators have provided evidence that checks went directly to Joe Biden, while a former business partner of his son Hunter Biden testified that then-Vice President Biden was on about 20 related phone calls and had meetings with his son’s business associates.

For several years now, the senior Biden has denied any role in his family’s business dealings. Hunter Biden said last week that his father was not “financially involved” in his business activities. 

After the House formally authorized the impeachment inquiry Wednesday by a vote of 221-212, largely along party lines, the president briefly addressed the border in a statement denouncing that vote as a “stunt.”

“We have to address the situation at our southern border, and I am determined to try to fix the problem,” Biden’s statement said. “We need funding to strengthen border security, but Republicans in Congress won’t act to help.” 

Brecheen argued that the border issues overshadow the issues related to Hunter Biden’s business deals and distribution of the proceeds. 

Brecheen said that what is happening at the border is an invasion, based on the potential for terrorism, crime, and human trafficking as a result.  

“People want to wordsmith it and say what is happening with 9 million people coming into this country is not an army,” the Oklahoma Republican told The Daily Signal. “I’m contending, and many people are contending, that you’ve got people coming into this country specific to the special interest alien list, specific to the terrorist watchlist.”

“We have people that want to do this country harm that are in this country,” Breecheen added. “They have learned they can come into this country because of what this administration has brought forth, 9 million [illegal aliens]. So, I believe that invasion is real. I believe the threat of terrorism is real for our nation.” 

The White House did not respond to The Daily Signal’s inquiries regarding the border element of this report. 

But in a post Monday on X, formerly Twitter, Ian Sams, senior adviser to the White House counsel’s office, again alleged that Republicans are being partisan and lack evidence to impeach the president. 

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