GOP flails in 'quagmire' as MAGA demands Biden impeachment it can't back up: columnist

The indictment of FBI informant Alexander Smirnov has thrown the Biden impeachment investigation into a "quagmire," wrote Philip Bump in an analysis for The Washington Post — caught between a lack of any evidence to impeach the president, and the demands of Republicans' far-right base to produce the results they want.

Smirnov was the source of a claim that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepted bribes from the Ukrainian firm Burisma to steer policy. He is now charged with making false statements, and FBI officials believe he has ties to Russian intelligence.

"The immediate fallout," wrote Bump, was for the leaders of the GOP effort, House chairmen James Comer (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), "to be the focus of largely deserved disparagement for hyping the allegation in the first place."

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, he added: "When then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced that his conference would launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden, he pointed to the debunked bribery claim as one predicate for doing so. But he also pointed to other things that were similarly dubious and that, in the months since, Comer, Jordan and their committees have been unable to substantiate."

The whole investigation was built on sand from the beginning, Bump argued — and that's a problem because Republicans don't have an easy political exit from it.

Also read: 'Terrified': CNN analyst says 'extreme measure' taken to keep Biden witness in jail

"The inquiry is 'on the brink of collapse,'" he noted, citing a Politico story on the matter, "which is probably too neat a descriptor. It hinges on the significant possibility that the House won’t bring articles of impeachment against Biden, but fails to address the lingering demand on the right for Biden to be held to account for what conservatives perceive as his wrongdoing."

"In January, Pew Research Center found that 9 in 10 Republicans think that Biden has done things that are grounds for impeachment. More than half say that’s definitely the case."

Ultimately, Bump concluded, "The most likely resolution of this is that, sunk in this tar pool they’d created, Republicans stop struggling and sit still for a while — hoping that Trump wins in November, lifting them from the quagmire. If he doesn’t? Well, let’s see what Sean Hannity says."