Regular Congressional GOP mouthpiece Punchbowl News experienced a brief liminal moment of journalistic independence on Tuesday, mixing the headline “Republicans pump brakes on impeachment inevitability” into its morning newsletter roundup for reasons unclear.
“The general consensus on Capitol Hill is that once Republicans vote to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden this week, it’s extremely likely the House will end up voting to impeach the president. The reasoning: It’s hard to imagine in this partisan era that House Republicans open such a probe and then conclude that Biden did nothing wrong. House GOP lawmakers, for their part, largely pushed back on that rationale Monday, saying it wasn’t accurate to assume Biden’s impeachment is inevitable,” they wrote, throwing in some quotes from House Republicans reluctant to take it to the next step… as of this point in time.
“I can defend an inquiry. I can’t defend impeachment right now,” says “moderate” Don Bacon. “If we don’t have the receipts, that should constrain what the House does [on impeachment],” says South Dakotan Dusty Johnson. “I’m sure there’s some people that would just as soon skip this part, but I don’t know that that’s a foregone conclusion,” said other “moderate” Dan Newhouse.