Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill might not agree on much, but there was one belief that generated bipartisan consensus last week: The GOP’s first impeachment inquiry hearing was an embarrassing fiasco.
One senior Republican staffer described the proceedings as “an unmitigated disaster.” Another conceded that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and his staff “botched this bad.” Steve Bannon, meanwhile, slammed GOP members for being unprepared, while one of his guests said House Republicans “don’t know what they’re doing at all.”
It was against this backdrop that Politico reported that some in the party were prepared to do more than just complain.
After a dud of a first impeachment hearing Thursday, some House Republicans are pushing to take the Biden inquiry away from House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and put it in the hands of Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). … “People are just not happy,” a senior GOP aide said, adding that Jordan, on the other hand, “been tested on this stuff” because he led Republicans through Trump’s impeachments.
The same report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that House Republicans privately agreed that “a ‘reset’ needs to happen.” It went on to note that Republican Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina is among those “pushing for a Jordan takeover.”
While GOP officials weigh their options, there are few angles to this that are worth keeping in mind.
The first is that Comer has earned the frustration of his allies. The Kentucky Republican has spent months overseeing a flailing crusade, making promises he couldn’t keep, holding hearings that undermined his own partisan efforts, and releasing ostensible “evidence” filled with factual errors.
Of course “people are just not happy.”
The second is that GOP insiders are mistaken if they think Jordan would excel where Comer has failed. Let’s not forget that the Ohioan’s conspiratorial “weaponization” committee has held all kinds of strange hearings, none of which has done Republicans any favors. Indeed, after one of his many underwhelming endeavors, Jordan confronted complaints from disappointed conservatives and headlines about his GOP-led crusade being “a dud.” In April, in the aftermath of several Jordan missteps, one GOP aide conceded that Jordan’s campaign was off to a “rocky start.” Politico’s report from Friday quoted a Republican saying that Jordan has been “tested on this stuff.” Perhaps. But is there any reason to believe the far-right Judiciary Committee chairman has passed any of these tests? Finally, whether GOP insiders are prepared to grapple with this or not, maybe congressional Republicans are struggling with their impeachment effort targeting President Joe Biden because the Democrat hasn’t actually done anything wrong? Maybe shifting from one chairman to another would be irrelevant if there’s no underlying controversy worth examining?
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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