Kevin McCarthyism

From the first, I thought the stupidest mistake Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made with the House Select Committee was pulling his Republicans from it. I’m sure he thought that doing this would make the committee SEEM partisan, but with his own choices serving, they could have easily cried out how supposedly partisan they would claim, even sitting on it.  Sure, most Americans wouldn’t have believed that, but the GOP base – who already think the election was “stolen” would have trusted whatever they were told and been able to be outraged.  And the McCarthy Republicans who could have been serving on the committee would all be insiders to everything going on, likely willing to pass along privately whatever information got uncovered which would be problematic (just as Devin Nunes and other Republicans did on the House Intelligence Committee during its investigations into Russian influence), giving Trump, McCarthy, Republicans times to undermine it and prepare their response before anything was revealed.

Instead, McCarthy’s weird gambit let the committee’s investigation proceed with Republicans on it anyway – just not any Republicans chosen by him, but by Speaker Nancy Pelosi who not only selected two Republicans who would act honorably and diligently, but one who had been part of GOP leadership until recently.  Further, Democrats – being very smart about this – not only made one of those Republicans the committee’s co-chair, but one of the most high-profile Republicans in the House whose father had been a Vice President of the United States, reviled by Democrats.

So, when reporters and the weekly Sunday shows want someone to talk to, there is the Republican co-chair ready to speak and make new, devastating revelations.

And worse now, the Select Committee is going to hold its hearings in public.  With two Republicans on it, one who is the co-chair – and zero perpetually-outraged Republicans serving who could have interrupted everything and challenged every ruling, and spent their allotted time not asking questions but giving speeches about how supposedly partisan it all was, doing their best to undercut the committee’s credibility.

But that won’t happen now.  Now, the committee will be calling the witnesses it wants, with no distractions, getting them to testify in public – and not just in public but on national television, laying out in meticulous detail the case that Kevin McCarthy and most all Republicans in Congress knows exists.  And doing that day after day without fear or distracting interruptions.  Just a committee of dedicated public officials doing their sworn duty to protect, preserve and defend the U.S. Constitution.

And then putting out a report in the Summer.  All the while continuing their investigation and putting out a final report in the Fall…before the mid-term election.

Yes, Republicans will cry out that it’s all supposedly “partisan.”  But they would have done that with members on the Select Committee.  And the added problem is that – not only are there two Republicans on the committee, including one as co-chair who been part of GOP leadership, but – a great many the witnesses testifying under oath will be Republicans, many of whom will have worked in the White House and part of Trump’s circle.

All without input from ace strategist, Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.  Because he got petulant and thought it was smart.

The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.