(CNN) – While the weekslong speaker fight consumed public attention, the House Republican-led committees leading the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden continued to work behind the scenes, holding a string of highly anticipated closed-door interviews and receiving more bank records from Hunter and James Biden.
But now that Speaker Mike Johnson, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has been elected, Republicans have the tall task of creating public momentum for an effort that has yet to resonate beyond its far-right base and present evidence that rises to the level of impeachment.
The inquiry into the president was off to a rocky start before former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted, but the three weeks of infighting culminating in Republicans electing Johnson have left in its wake an entirely new landscape, exacerbating divisions in the GOP conference and cutting down the legislative calendar to a point where the entire Republican agenda beyond essential functions such as funding the government has lost momentum.
“We wasted 22 days,” said House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, a Republican from Missouri who leads one of the panels tasked with the inquiry.
The prospect of when the inquiry can be finished is also thrown into question given the speaker’s race ate up so much of the legislative calendar.
Another unknown factor is how House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan – who spent much of the last three weeks running for speaker – will return to the scene. Republicans have long relied on Jordan to be their top messenger on hot button issues, but the unwavering opposition Jordan faced from a significant portion of his colleagues exposed the limitations of his reach in the conference.
Over the course of the three weeks without a speaker, Republican staff with the House Oversight and Judiciary committees maintained that their…
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