When House Republicans formally approved an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden in mid-December, it was a dramatic development, but not in a good way. It was the first time in American history that Congress authorized an impeachment inquiry without uncovering any evidence of wrongdoing against the intended target.
It’s likely that GOP lawmakers hoped that by formalizing the investigation, they might be able to fill in the gaps with incriminating information about the Democratic incumbent. If so, they have reason to be disappointed.
In the two months since the impeachment inquiry was authorized, their star witness — the man whose claims were the heart of the Republicans’ case — was arrested for lying to the FBI about the Bidens. What’s more, as a new Washington Post report noted, congressional investigators have “compiled an extensive record of sworn statements from firsthand witnesses,” all of whom have confirmed that the president “was never involved” with his son’s business affairs.
It’s against this backdrop that the GOP’s leading anti-Biden crusader is conceding that his campaign might not work out as he’d hoped. Spectrum News reported:
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the chairman of the House Oversight Committee who is leading the Republican effort to investigate President Joe Biden, says the House may not hold an impeachment vote after all. Comer told Spectrum News that the “math keeps getting worse” for Republicans, whose razor-thin majority in the House got even tighter after losing a Republican-held New York congressional seat [last] week.
The beleaguered Kentucky congressman said he still hoped for congressional action in the coming months, but he added that “accountability” might not come until there’s “a new president [and] a new attorney general.”
In other words, Comer is envisioning a scenario in which Biden is defeated in 2024, leaves office in early 2025, and faces a criminal investigation soon after.
That’s a bold prediction for a congressman who’s failed so spectacularly that members of his own party have begun describing Comer’s crusade with words and phrases such as “clueless,” “disaster,” and “parade of embarrassments.”
That said, the Oversight Committee chairman isn’t wrong about the Capitol Hill arithmetic: To impeach the president, House Republicans would only be able to lose a small handful of votes from their own conference. According to a recent CNN report, “around 20” GOP members are not convinced there is sufficient evidence for impeachment.
The same report added, “A growing number of senior House Republicans are coming to terms with a stark realization: It is unlikely that their monthslong investigation into Joe Biden will actually lead to impeaching the president.”
As for Biden’s predecessor — the only American president to ever be impeached twice — Donald Trump has been unsubtle in demanding that his partisan allies in the House impeach the incumbent, even as the Republicans’ case collapses.
In “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” there’s a scene in which villagers decide they want to burn a suspected witch, and John Cleese’s character offers proof of her evil ways: “She turned me into a newt.” When the woman makes clear that she’s not a witch, and everyone notices that Cleese’s character is clearly not a newt, he says sheepishly, “I got better.”
Enraged villagers, indifferent to the evidence, exclaim moments later, “Burn her anyway!”
The scene came to mind watching Trump and his cohorts push for Biden’s impeachment. Confronted with evidence that the Democrat simply did not do what the GOP has accused him of doing, Republicans are declaring, “Impeach him anyway!”
As things stand, impeachment advocates should probably start lowering their expectations.
