Dem
51
GOP
49
As expected, the House voted yesterday on whether or not to look into an impeachment of Joe Biden. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) demonstrated some pretty strong cat-herding skills, as the measure passed along party lines, 221-212. Even Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who previously said he was a "no" and described the whole effort as "impeachment theater," fell into line in the end.
Officially, the reason for holding a formal vote is that it will give House Republicans more power to collect information and enforce subpoenas. This is not entirely a GOP fantasy; the White House has produced letters in which it refused to give information to an unofficial inquiry. Now that the inquiry is official, the Republicans hope they can pry more documents loose from the administration. They also hope they can compel Hunter Biden to testify behind closed doors.
And that brings us to the real reason for this whole inquiry. Keep in mind that Hunter Biden has already agreed to testify, he just wants the hearing to be open. Why is that not acceptable to House Republicans? The only explanation we can come up with, and it's the same one that Hunter Biden and his attorneys have come up with, is that the Republicans want to misrepresent whatever the First Son says, either by misquoting him, or taking things out of context, or whatever.
In other words, the truth is that this is just a giant, state-sponsored PR operation. Or, if you prefer, a propaganda operation. We are happy to change our tune on that, if and when evidence of malfeasance by Joe Biden comes to light. But Republican politicians and operatives have been looking under every rock for such information for nearly 4 years, and haven't come up with anything. So, we don't expect we will have to eat our words.
Since there is no "there," there, then we assume the game that "lead investigator" Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) will play is to drag this out over many, many months. That way, even if the Republicans don't find anything, there will nonetheless be a steady stream of headlines about the "Biden investigation," which could serve to give some voters the impression that the President is shady. Probably, at some point in the fairly distant future, there will be a final report in which Jordan & Co. compile all the "evidence" they've found, no matter how inconsequential. We suspect that report's release will be carefully timed, probably to come out during the Democratic convention, or shortly before the presidential election.
All of this said, Republican politicians have a bad habit of assuming that voters are low intelligence. Sometimes this works for the GOP, sometimes it doesn't. With roughly a year to counter-program, the Democrats might be able to impress people with the shady nature of all of this, and to use it as Exhibit 1A for their argument that Republicans have no interest in governing, only in score-settling. Less than 10 minutes after the vote on the impeachment resolution became official, the Biden campaign sent this fundraising missive out in the name of Kamala Harris:
House Republicans just launched a ridiculous impeachment inquiry into President Biden that lacks real evidence and that they themselves admit is all about politics.
It's clear: They're going to throw everything they have at Joe, because they know they can't run against our record. If you're waiting for a moment to show your support for him, trust me when I say: This is it.
Is Team Biden just trying to take lemons and make lemonade? Or do they think this is going to be a winner for them? We don't know, but it's possible both are true. In any case, the point is that the Speaker may have won the battle yesterday, but you should not assume this means he and his party will win the war. (Z)