The new Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on Hannity last night and made it clear that the impeachment inquiry onto Joe Biden is all systems go. Or is it? Philip Bump writes:
The Hannity interview was useful in one sense. Johnson’s predecessor as speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), had approved the impeachment inquiry driven largely by Comer and Jordan. When McCarthy was ousted, it wasn’t clear what would happen. Johnson confirmed that it will move forward.
Or perhaps it won’t. In late September, the impeachment inquiry held a hearing involving a handful of witnesses, none of whom could provide any evidence impugning Joe Biden or his son, by their own admissions. The 2019 impeachment of Donald Trump — probably the target of Johnson’s sniffy disparagement of “the other team” — had released its final report about three weeks after its first hearing (which was followed by four more days of hearings). The Biden “impeachment inquiry” has held no more hearings in the month since the first one. And, by his own admission, Comer doesn’t want to.
“I don’t know that I want to hold any more hearings, to be honest with you,” Comer said while speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill last week. He complained that it was hard to keep members present for hours on end, given that so many had other commitments. Instead, he said, he preferred depositions, which “you can do more with.”
There’s a truth buried in that, of course. You can do more with cherry-picked transcripts when your goal is to coat Joe Biden with insinuations and unproved allegations.
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One would think that at some point, Comer would need to present evidence that withstands objective scrutiny — including by non-right-wing media outlets. The value of adjudicating these things in public hearings is that they are tested and challenged, making the surviving evidence stronger. We can be more confident that Biden’s role in the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor was not corrupt because the assertion was evaluated during the 2019 impeachment.
But we know this isn’t really necessary. Johnson and Comer can remain surrounded by their allies, including Hannity, and pluck stuff out of depositions that hops over the low evidentiary bar they’ve all agreed to. After all, it’s what they’ve done so far.
This will not be surprising in the least. They will move forward with an impeachment vote based upon cherry picked, incomprehensible gobbldygook with a lot of shrill speeches that prove nothing and they will impeach Joe Biden. They know it will fail in the Senate and indeed, it may not even be taken up, depending on how long this whole process takes. But they will have it on the record that Joe Biden was impeached and that’s what Dear Leader wants. If Johnson can also get Trump’s impeachments “expunged” he will be the MAGA hero of all heroes.
The circus is still in town.