Partway through the House Republicans’ first impeachment inquiry hearing, the GOP leadership of the House Judiciary Committee issued a statement with curious praise. The Republicans overseeing the proceedings, the committee’s statement argued, “are crushing it at this hearing.”
It’s difficult to say with confidence whether the GOP members actually believed this. Perhaps they were trying to convince themselves that the party wasn’t embarrassing itself on live national television. Perhaps they hoped the public wasn’t watching, and if they simply pretended the proceedings were going well, some would believe them.
Either way, the only thing “crushed” at this hearing were the dreams of Republican crusaders desperate to undermine President Joe Biden. As a New York Times report summarized:
The first hearing in House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Biden featured their star witnesses testifying that they lacked proof that he committed impeachable offenses, multiple procedural skirmishes the G.O.P. majority nearly lost and, at times, nearly a dozen empty Republican seats. What it did not include was any new information about Mr. Biden’s conduct — or any support for Republicans’ accusations that he had entered into corrupt overseas business deals.
Politico described it as “Comer’s impeachment bellyflop,” referring to Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who serves as the beleaguered chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
At this point, we could spend several hundred words highlighting every individual error of fact and judgment. I could note the obvious deceptions. I could marvel at the fact that the Republicans’ own witnesses said they didn’t see sufficient evidence to impeach the Democratic president. I could mock GOP members for rejecting Democratic efforts to submit as evidence testimony from one of the Republicans’ other witnesses.
I could also dwell on the fact that the GOP members behind this exercise had plenty of time to prepare for the hearing, which made it that much more humiliating when they appeared unprepared for their own show.
But as notable as those details might be, what struck me as especially interesting was the number of Republicans who realized that their own party’s hearing was a debacle. As a HuffPost report noted:
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) pointed to Republicans “directly” coming to him with concerns after witnessing a “weak” showing during the first GOP-led impeachment inquiry hearing on President Joe Biden. “I know there was a lot of consternation and alarm on the Republican side to see how weak the case was,” Raskin told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday.
A senior Republican staffer told a CNN reporter that the hearing was “an unmitigated disaster.” Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman, an MSNBC contributor, added that “many” in the GOP leadership agreed that the hearing was a disaster.
A reporter for The Messenger spoke to another House Republican staffer who said, “Comer and staff botched this bad. ... How can you not be better prepared for this?”
If Comer and his colleagues hoped the reactions would be more favorable in conservative media, they quickly learned otherwise. Fox News’ Neil Cavuto questioned why the hearing was even held, conceded that Republicans had nothing new or substantive to offer, and criticized GOP members for failing to bring their “A game.”
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.”
There was no doubt they had nothing before the hearing; the question was whether they’d be able to do anything worthwhile during the hearing. Instead, Republicans made matters worse — not for Biden, but for themselves.