Ahead of the midterm elections, the question wasn’t whether a House Republican majority would launch impeachment drives, but rather, which of the many GOP targets would be impeached first. After the midterm elections, as Politico reported, it’s a very different story.
Conservatives’ dream of impeaching President Joe Biden or members of his administration is crashing into a new reality: A razor-thin House GOP majority. House Republicans’ smaller-than-hoped-for margin — they’re expected to control the chamber by only a handful of votes — means any impeachment votes would require near-unanimity from a conference that sharply divides over even simple issues….
The point isn’t that right-wing members have lost interest in their impeachment list. On the contrary, many of the conference’s most radical members are every bit as eager as they were before Election Day.
Rather, the relevant detail here is that there are some less-radical members in competitive districts, who want to keep their jobs, and who don’t see much of a political upside to months of conspiratorial hearings and impeachment votes that the Democratic-led Senate won’t take seriously.
But to assume that the right will shift its focus away from impeachment crusades and toward governing is probably a mistake — in part because the GOP is a post-policy party that has no interest in legislating, and in part because some Republicans still believe their partisan investments will pay dividends.
Take Rep. Chris Stewart, for example. The Utah Republican, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, appeared on Glenn Beck’s program last week. When the host expressed skepticism about impeaching President Joe Biden, suggesting the Senate wouldn’t convict him, Stewart pushed back a bit.
“[T]hey’re marshaling their forces, because they know a catastrophe is coming for the administration,” Stewart said, apparently referring to Democrats and the left. “And that is, the truth is finally going to be revealed. And it’s going to be revealed in such a way, that it can’t be ignored.”
After pushing some theories about the Bidens — something about conspiring with Chinese communists — the congressman concluded, “I think the evidence of this is potentially so overwhelming that I don’t think it’s impossible that the Senate doesn’t actually convict. I think it’s possible that the evidence is again so overwhelming that they may have no choice.”
This didn’t sound like a politician ready to give up on impeachment. Postscript: In case Stewart’s name sounds at all familiar, it was in early August when the Utah Republican, after the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, acknowledged to Politico that if Donald mishandled sensitive classified information, it would be a serious matter. “I mean, if he had actual Special Access Programs — do you know how extraordinarily sensitive that is? That’s very, very sensitive. If that were actually at his residence, that would be a problem,” Stewart said. “But we just don’t know that. So let’s find out.” Soon after, we found out that Trump really did take “extraordinarily sensitive” materials related to Special Access Programs to his unsecured glorified country club. Stewart did not publicly express any further concerns, despite his on-the-record comments.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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