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House Republicans had been itching to start impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden<\/strong> from the moment he was inaugurated. But, as the idiom goes, be careful what you wish for: Six months after then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy<\/strong> initiated<\/a> an inquiry into the president, the stunt is now blowing up in their faces. They\u2019ve failed to turn up evidence to incriminate Biden, and the flimsy pretense they based their effort on appears to have come from Russian intelligence<\/a>. Their already-slim majority is narrowing further with the early retirement<\/a> of disillusioned Representative Ken Buck<\/strong>. And this week’s testimony<\/a> from special counsel Robert Hur<\/strong>, who helped turbocharge questions about Biden\u2019s age, likely failed to convince GOP members wary of impeachment to ultimately back the crusade.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is obviously time to move on, Mr. Speaker,\u201d White House counsel Edward N. Siskel<\/strong> wrote<\/a> to Mike Johnson<\/strong> Friday. \u201cThis impeachment is over. There is too much important work to be done for the American people to continue wasting time on this charade.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, \u201cmoving on\u201d isn\u2019t so simple for Republicans, politically-speaking. If they were to back down from their impeachment push, it would be something of an acknowledgement that they don\u2019t have the goods on Biden\u2014the man they hope to defeat in November. But by going through with it, without the necessary votes, they would be setting themselves up for a political humiliation far worse than they suffered when they failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas<\/strong> on the first try. \u201cHow would that make us look?\u201d Texas Republican Troy Nehls<\/strong> said in a CNN interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cYou save your gunpowder at some point,\u201d South Carolina\u2019s Ralph Norman<\/strong> added<\/a> to Politico. \u201cYou saw the trouble we had on Mayorkas.\u201d<\/p>\n Mayorkas, who was impeached<\/a> on the second go-around last month, was targeted by House Republicans over the Biden administration\u2019s immigration policy\u2014days after they helped kill a bipartisan, White House-backed border bill that would have implemented the tougher measures they\u2019d been demanding. That impeachment was also a political exercise. But the Biden impeachment crusade is even more brazenly political<\/a>: a smoke-and-mirrors operation to hurt the president and avenge the twice-impeached Donald Trump<\/strong>.<\/p>\n James Comer<\/strong> and Jim Jordan<\/strong>\u2014the carnival barkers of this political circus\u2014have even begun to lower expectations, with the latter moving the timeline on a potential vote and the former suggesting that his fishing expedition will have succeeded whether or not Biden ends up impeached at the end of it. \u201cMy job was never to impeach,\u201d the Oversight Committee chair told CNN.<\/p>\n That\u2019s true, in a sense. Just as the GOP\u2019s endless Benghazi investigation wasn\u2019t about accountability but dragging down Hillary Clinton<\/strong>\u2019s campaign, the Biden impeachment has been about creating the impression that he is, in Trump\u2019s words, \u201ccrooked<\/a>.\u201d They don\u2019t need a formal vote to accomplish that\u2014just a platform to spread their innuendo about Biden\u2019s supposed corruption. But how much reach do those hazy insinuations have beyond their right-wing bubble, especially as their leader faces concrete charges in four separate criminal cases? \u201cNone of the evidence has demonstrated that the president did anything wrong,\u201d Siskel wrote to Johnson, who insists that his investigators have uncovered \u201calarming\u201d proof of Biden\u2019s wrongdoing but that he has been too \u201cbusy\u201d to decide what to do with it. \u201cIn fact, it has shown the opposite of what House Republicans have claimed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n