In the first official sign of the new year that the GOP is coming to grips with the new realities of the Trump presidency — that he’s an unindicted co-conspirator in multiple felonies who won’t stop digging the hole he’s already in — Axios reports today that Republicans on the Hill have listed a job opening for Investigative Counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, calling for “an attorney with several years of investigative or litigation experience.”
Reporter Mike Allen says that according to his source among Republicans, the stipulation for “litigation experience” is partially related to the looming possibility of impeachment of the President for not just the external crimes he’s been implicated in, but a litany of offenses that the newly-seated Democratically-controlled House could find fall under impeachable offenses.
This marks a defining change in attitude among Republicans in Congress, who have until this point gone almost exclusively on offense against any action from the Democrats and in support of Trump, who enjoys a broader base among the Tea Party types in the House who have evolved into the “Freedom Caucus” chaired by Mark Meadows. Even former House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who gets demoted to Minority Leader today as his party shrinks into their new role as the opposition in the House, struck a conciliatory tone in his prepared remarks for the swearing-in ceremony today seeking to ameliorate bad blood in advance:
As Ronald Reagan advised us, America is too great for small dreams. When we work together, we succeed together. We are now entering a period of divided government, but that is no excuse for gridlock and inaction. We are at our best when we focus not on retribution but on building a more perfect union.”
The GOP may be exactly right to be nervous: In an interview with Savannah Guthrie of the Today Show, new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shut down the idea that DOJ guidance about indicting a sitting president is in any way the law, telling Guthrie the guidance wasn’t “conclusive,” let alone the law.
But whether indicted or impeached, whoever answers this job posting put up by Republicans on the House Judiciary better have a good idea what they’re in for.
Featured image via screen capture
