GOP: Impeachment probe sputters out
House Republicans’ 15-month impeachment inquiry into President Biden has produced nothing but “face-plant after face-plant,” said Hayes Brown in MSNBC.com. The inquiry’s first hearing, in September, was panned as an embarrassment after Oversight Committee Chair James Comer offered zero evidence to back up his claim that Biden, while serving as vice president, profited from his son Hunter’s overseas business dealings. The second hearing, held last week, was even worse. Republicans called two former Hunter associates as witnesses, insisting the men would “finally rip the lid off” the affair. But neither had any evidence implicating Biden in a single crime, and one, Jason Galanis, gave his testimony from a federal prison where he’s serving 14 years for fraud. Meanwhile, Democratic witness Lev Parnas, a former associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, told the committee the bumbling inquiry is predicated on “false information being spread by the Kremlin.”
“It turns out that fishing expeditions are quite hard when there’s nothing in the lake,” said Joe Perticone in The Bulwark. Comer’s overheated claims have “even flummoxed his allies in the conservative media.” Witnesses who were supposed to reveal Biden’s dastardly behavior have vanished or been discredited—most notably Alexander Smirnov, an ex-FBI informant with alleged ties to Russian intelligence. In February, he was charged with fabricating a claim that Biden received a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian energy company in 2015. The question on Capitol Hill is “just when and how the hell this thing is going to end.” Comer is now signaling he won’t pursue impeachment charges at all, said Lauren Irwin in The Hill. He told Newsmax last week “the best path to accountability” is to make criminal referrals to the Justice Department, which are certain to go nowhere.
The inquiry’s implosion adds to the growing “chaos” engulfing the House GOP, said Zachary Basu in Axios. After Speaker Mike Johnson backed a $1.2 trillion spending bill to avert a government shutdown last week, hard-liners erupted in rage and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a motion to remove Johnson as speaker. Burned out by “constant infighting,” lawmakers are resigning in droves; by mid-April, Republicans will hold only a one-seat majority in the chamber. Adding insult to injury, disgraced former Rep. George Santos has said he’s leaving the party to attempt a return to Congress as an independent. The GOP brand, Santos explained, is too “embarrassing.”
No Labels keeps searching for its “dream thirdparty presidential ticket,” said Vaughn Hillyard in NBCNews.com, but it “keeps getting turned down.” Amid concern that the organization’s supposed “unity ticket” could serve as a spoiler and hand Donald Trump the election, more than a dozen political figures have declined invitations to be the No Labels presidential candidate, including former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Last week, even former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan—hardly a national household name—also said no, thanks. You’d think this would be easier, said Byron York in the Washington Examiner. Most Americans did not want a Joe Biden–Donald Trump rematch, and No Labels already has ballot access in 22 states. But widespread “lack of interest” has turned the organization’s ambitious plans into “something of a joke.”
In fact, No Labels is looking more and more like “an elaborate grift,” said Chris Brennan in USA Today. Founded in 2010 with “noble intentions” of promoting bipartisan cooperation in Congress, the organization insists it is not a political party. This has allowed it to keep its finances largely secret, but Politico revealed last year that “Republican mega-donor” Harlan Crow, Justice Clarence Thomas’ billionaire benefactor, was a major contributor, intensifying suspicions that the organization exists to siphon votes away from Biden. Meanwhile, its “shady” founders are raising millions in donations to pay themselves six-figure salaries despite having no candidate.
No third-party candidate—not Jill Stein, not Cornel West, not Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—“has much chance of winning,” said Geoffrey Skelley in ABCNews.go.com. But they could well “affect the margins in closely divided swing states,” which have been decided by as little as 10,000 votes in recent presidential elections. The Democrats’ “overwhelming focus is now on Kennedy,” said Gabriel Debenedetti in New York magazine. RFK Jr., an anti-vax conspiracy theorist, is polling at about 12 percent in a matchup against Biden and Trump. Given Biden’s relatively low approval ratings, Democrats believe the election needs to be a binary choice so they get every anti-Trump vote; as a result, spooked party operatives are challenging RFK Jr.’s petitions for ballot access in key swing states. If No Labels isn’t on the ballot, it will be the black sheep of the Kennedy clan who poses “the greatest threat to Biden.”