'Nuisance' Elise Stefanik shredded for 'clumsy performance art' bid to exonerate Trump of impeachments

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a key architect of a symbolic resolution to "expunge" the two impeachments of former President Donald Trump, was ripped to shreds by columnist Charles P. Pierce for Esquire on Friday.

"Stefanik is a nuisance on her way to becoming a general blight, but this move is further evidence that a substantial portion of the Republican caucus in the House has fashioned itself into a mechanism to launder the former president's crimes in advance of his 2024 presidential campaign, and that this effort has many elements," wrote Pierce.

Among the other prongs of the GOP's operation, Pierce noted, are an impeachment resolution against President Joe Biden by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) that Republicans just voted to refer to committee and that led to a House floor fight between Boebert and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) over her competing resolution, and threats by some GOP lawmakers to try to defund the FBI in retaliation for the indictment against the former president.

"Why they can't just leave this absurd work to the campaign and to the brigade of sycophants in the press is not for small minds to ponder," wrote Pierce. "Clogging up the legislative process with clumsy performance art ought to be an offense severely punishable at election time."

He added, "And I ought to be able to fly."

Trump's first impeachment concerned his plot to withhold congressional defense funding for Ukraine to force that country's president to announce an "investigation" into Joe Biden's family; the second was for giving encouragement to the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. This resolution would not actually eliminate the impeachments from the House record, something for which there is no mechanism.