As many on both the right and left sides of the political spectrum have declared that the hearings featuring former Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller before the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees did not go as Democrats might have hoped, it could be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who is the primary recipient of the fallout.
During an appearance on Huntsville, AL radio’s WVNN on Wednesday, Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL), a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020, indicated the hearings earlier in the day were a flop, adding it was the end of the line for the collusion narrative.
“We learned absolutely nothing new today,” Byrne said on “The Jeff Poor Show.” “I mean absolutely nothing. And the truth of the matter is they were hoping this hearing today was going to create something sort of dramatic, something that would look good on TV they could use to juice everybody up and say, ‘Oh no, we really do need to impeach. They got nothing. There was terrible TV of what they got today. And I say, there’s nothing new. There’s no narrative here that they can use. I think this is the end of the line for them.”
However, the Alabama Republican predicted some among House Democrats would continue to try, which made it a bad day for the Democrat Speaker of the House.
“It’s not the end of the line for that group over there to try and impeach the president,” he continued. “But why I say it is a bad day for Nancy Pelosi because she knows it was not good. And so it puts more pressure on her from the other end of her conference to say, ‘Look, it hurts us to be talking about impeachment,’ while you’ve got 90-something-odd of them saying, ‘No, we need to talk about impeachment.’ It just causes great internal divisions within their group because I don’t know a single Republican who thinks this is even worth talking about anymore. In fact, most of us didn’t think we should be talking about it years ago. But as far as we’re concerned, it’s just as dead as it can be. “
Byrne said he expected there still to be pressure for impeachment and that put Pelosi in a difficult position.
“I know they’re going to try,” Byrne said. “Their leadership is going to try to push back against it. They have gained some votes, as you saw from that vote last week. But it is political poison for the Democrats. And Pelosi knows that for example. I’ve talked to some of the Democrats I know who are more moderate who told me they think it is very bad for them in their districts. I say this is a very bad day for Pelosi. Now she has got to figure out, ‘How do I keep these folks on the far left at bay on this impeachment thing.”
“That pressure is going to grow from that side, but now she’s got pressure coming from the other side of her conference saying, ‘This is bad politics. We need to get away from this impeachment talk. She is in a vise, and quite frankly, she needs to be in a vise. She has made decisions during this Congress that have basically just about blocked Republicans from everything. And she is in a position right now where she has got to figure out whether she can muster votes out of her own group for stuff she is trying to do.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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