I don’t, yet, have the stomach to write up the shittiness of the Hill reporting on Kevin McCarthy’s embrace of James Comer’s wet dreams of dick pics and SARs.

Suffice it to say access merchants like Jake Sherman are transcribing Big Kev’s preordained decision to back impeachment without mentioning that he is supporting an inquiry because he has no evidence of wrongdoing on Biden’s part, a constitutional abomination.

This WaPo story is the rare story on the development that makes the corruption behind McCarthy’s decision — and his own weakness in adopting it — the story, as it should be.

To appease those lawmakers, Republican leaders are weighing whether to use a potential impeachment inquiry vote as a bargaining chip in the funding negotiations. But even if the inquiry is included in the talks, it’s not certain that Republicans have the necessary 218 votes to pass it. Some lawmakers are staunchly against it, and McCarthy has said that an impeachment inquiry would occur through a vote on the House floor, as opposed to his unilateral decision-making.

“I think it’s abusing the process,” Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) said, lamenting how political impeachments have become. “We’ve been good about letting [the] Judiciary and Oversight [committees] run their course, and I’ve not seen a compilation of facts or evidence that had been put together that would convince me or anybody else at the moment that the next step is an impeachment inquiry.”

House Republicans have been investigating whether Biden benefited from his son Hunter’s business dealings, but they have yet to discover evidence directly connecting the two. While they have uncovered allegations that the Justice Department stymied the investigation into Hunter Biden’s financial misdeeds, along with testimony about his penchant for touting the family brandto reel in business deals, investigators on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees have not unearthed any evidence of wrongdoing by the president.

The fact that McCarthy is capitulating to the most radical members of his own party out of desperation makes developments in Brooklyn more significant.

On August 15, EDNY indicted George Santos’ fundraiser, Samuel Miele, for impersonating McCarthy’s former Chief of Staff, Dan Meyer, in conversations with fundraisers.

That case was reassigned, as a case related to Santos‘ own fraud prosecution, to Judge Joanna Seybert. Within a week of the charges, the Miele case shifted to discussions of “possible dispositions,” code for a plea agreement, as suggested in a letter asking for a continuance of even an initial hearing to September 5.

Since that date, the parties have engaged in meaningful discussions about possible dispositions of this matter without the need for a trial. The parties are jointly requesting that the Court exclude the time from today’s date through September 5, 2023, to allow the parties to focus on those discussions instead of trial preparation.

Last week, after EDNY had provided some discovery to Miele, both sides joined in asking for another longer continuance to discuss what was explicitly described as a plea.

The parties now write to advise the Court that the government has made two substantial discovery productions in accordance with Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and that negotiations concerning a potential resolution of this case without the need for a trial are active and ongoing. Under these circumstances, the parties respectfully submit that excluding additional Speedy Trial time to accommodate the defendant’s ongoing discovery review and facilitate plea discussions will serve the ends of justice and outweigh the best interests of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial.

The day after the continuance in Miele’s case, prosecutors in Santos’ case asked for a continuance of a status hearing that had been scheduled for Thursday, in part, to “discuss possible paths forward in this matter.”

Further, the parties have continued to discuss possible paths forward in this matter. The parties wish to have additional time to continue those discussions.

By all appearances, Santos is further from a plea than Miele is, probably for good reason. Miele has testimony against Santos to offer as leverage; Santos has his seat in the House (though depending on the precise nature of his relationship with Andrew Intrater and Viktor Vekselberg, Santos might be able to trade testimony as well).

But this is a public integrity case, and as such, a resignation is one of the things that prosecutors are permitted to use in negotiating a plea deal.

And EDNY is discussing very short timelines, with Miele’s next hearing currently scheduled for October 6, and Santos’ next status hearing scheduled for October 27.

Which is to say that Big Kev may lose the deciding vote that made him Speaker even before discussions of impeachment and shutdowns are resolved.