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Last summer, Rep. Matt Gaetz was among the many far-right Republicans eager to pursue an impeachment case against President Joe Biden. In fact, the GOP congressman suggested his party didn’t need to bother with an impeachment inquiry, because the “existing evidence“ against the incumbent Democrat was already so strong.
That was six months ago. Last week, Gaetz conceded that some of the Republican Party’s earlier anti-Biden claims “might have been a little oversauced.”
How badly is the GOP’s impeachment crusade going? Even Matt Gaetz, one of his party’s more notorious partisan bomb-throwers, thinks some of his party’s rhetoric was a bit excessive.
For much of the last year, the prevailing questions were about the possible outcomes. Would Republicans have the votes to impeach Biden? When might we see a vote? How many GOP members would break ranks?
Now that the party’s case has collapsed in humiliating fashion, a different question tops the list: Shouldn’t Republicans just acknowledge reality and let this debacle fade away?
In theory, the obvious answer is yes. Indeed, no one seriously doubts the fact that impeachment proponents don’t have the votes: If only a handful of GOP members were to balk on the House floor, the effort would fail. Earlier this month, CNN reported that “around 20” GOP members were prepared to vote against their own party’s impeachment effort. Last week, one House Republican said that total was 30. This week, another House Republican told Axios there are “easily 40-50” Republicans who would likely vote against impeachment.
And yet, the GOP majority on the House Oversight Committee, led by Kentucky Rep. James Comer, nevertheless published a new social-media thread this week, claiming it still has a credible case against Biden. That case quickly collapsed under scrutiny.
In other words, as the party confronts a discouraging reality, the relevant Republicans are still desperate to pretend they might still win the unnecessary fight they picked without cause.
It’s worth considering why.
I’m occasionally reminded of a report CNN ran several months ago, shortly before party leaders decided to proceed with an impeachment inquiry against the president:
Republicans say if they don’t move forward with an impeachment inquiry now, it will create the impression that House Republicans have essentially cleared Biden of any wrongdoing.
In other words, the party came to believe it had to launch an impeachment inquiry, not because of the facts, but because of perceptions. To follow the evidence might make the president look better, so the absence of evidence had to be ignored.
The same is true now. What the party needs is an off-ramp it can take while saving face, but that does not and will not exist.
Instead, Republicans are left with a dynamic in which they keep having to invest more political capital into a failed scheme because of their earlier bad investments.
It's the impeachment inquiry that GOP officials see as too big to fail.
A Politico report from September added, “Opening an inquiry then failing to follow through would be a major political boon to Biden — essentially, a tacit admission by the GOP that he’s innocent.”
The fact that Biden really is innocent is an inconvenient detail the party prefers to overlook.
Republicans picked a fight they couldn’t afford to lose, so they’re keeping the fight going, prolonging the inevitable.
The smart move would be to plan a Friday night news dump, perhaps ahead of a holiday weekend, in which Comer, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, and their cohorts would issue a press release that read, “Never mind.” Recent history suggests these GOP members have no interest in the smart move.