Mastodawn

Nonilex Dec 15, 2023

It’s been 8 yrs since Rep #KevinMcCarthy might have cost himself his first shot at the #House speakership w/ a FoxNews interview. McCarthy committed a then-unpardonable gaffe of linking the #GOP’s Benghazi investigation to #political advantage. 
He said that #HillaryClinton had looked unbeatable, “but we put together a Benghazi special cmte, a select cmte. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”
 #Trump #Republicans #impeachment #Biden #Nehls
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/14/biden-impeachment-nehls-analysis/

It’s not just Troy Nehls saying the quiet part out loud on impeachment

Republicans are decreasingly shy about connecting their investigations and impeachment inquiry of President Biden to political concerns, but Nehls might take the cake.

The Washington Post

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Nonilex Dec 15, 2023

The comment led Benghazi cmte chairman Rep Trey Gowdy (R) to agonize over how his friend had just undermined the cmte’s ostensibly apolitical work. Soon the presumptive next speaker bowed out of that race, while reflecting that the “distraction” he had created with the Benghazi remarks was “part of the decision.”
 We are a long way from 2015.

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Nonilex Dec 15, 2023

The #Trump era has exacted a toll on political norms. High on the list is this one: #Republicans now tie decisions that are supposed to be about sober-minded principles — most notably their new #impeachment inquiry of President #Biden — to their own #political advantage. And some of them aren’t particularly shy about it.
 Perhaps nobody has been less shy than Rep. Troy #Nehls (R).

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Nonilex

#Nehls was asked Wed about what the #House #GOP conference hoped to gain from the #Biden #impeachment inquiry. He was blunt: “All I can say is Donald J. Trump 2024, baby!”
 The comment might be dismissed as an impolitic & unintentional one, except that it came just a week after… (when) Speaking to USA Today, Nehls said that after #Trump’s two impeachments, he wanted to give the former president “a little bit of ammo to fire back” — to be able to say that Biden, too, had been impeached.

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Nonilex Dec 15, 2023

…But it’s not just #Nehls….
 Back in May, House Oversight…Chair James #Comer (R) made a comment remarkably similar…. He cited #Trump’s increasingly good poll numbers against #Biden & said…, “the media is looking around, scratching their head, & they’re realizing that the American people are keeping up w/our investigation.”
 Judiciary Cmte Chair #JimJordan (R) last year pitched the investigations expressly as an attempt to #influence voters’ 2024 choices: “That will help frame up the 2024 race….”

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Nonilex Dec 15, 2023

#Republicans have basically pitched #impeachment as fair-game #retribution for #Trump’s impeachments.
 “…we have a situation where the standard of impeachment has been lowered to such a degree that…it’s merely…a political exercise,” Rep #Reschenthaler (R) said this wk….
 & long before…, #TedCruz basically warned of a thinly constructed, tit-for-tat political #Biden impeachment. In Jan 2022, he predicted if the #GOP won the #House majority, it would #impeach Biden “whether it’s justified or not.”