The GOP’s Elise Stefanik impeachment stunt has promptly blown up in its face

| 6:00 pm EST November 16, 2019
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The House Intelligence Committee is chock full of some of the most embarrassing Republicans in the entire party. So naturally, just before televised impeachment hearings began, the GOP added jittery scumbag Jim Jordan to the committee in order to make things even worse. But now the Republicans have found yet another way to embarrass themselves.

Elise Stefanik is no more or less dishonest and embarrassing than any other Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. But the House GOP leadership has suddenly decided to push her to the forefront of the televised House impeachment hearings, for a reason that’s as obvious as it is sexist. She’s the only Republican woman on the committee, and the GOP knows that it has a woman problem, particularly when serial sexual assaulter Donald Trump is involved.

House Republicans really seemed to think that if they used Elise Stefanik prominently enough, it would somehow cancel out the fact that yesterday’s star witness Marie Yovanovitch is a woman. At least we think that’s the logic, because when it comes to the Republicans and gender, it can be difficult to precisely parse the derangement that derives the party’s motivations. Stefanik simply told the same deranged pro-Trump lies that the other House Republicans have been telling, and the GOP thought that would… change minds?

In any case, the House GOP’s attempt at using Elise Stefanik to dishonestly pander to women voters was blatant enough that even the AP called it out in a headline, and Stefanik’s name began trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons. In fact the stunt has created a groundswell of support for Stefanik’s 2020 Democratic opponent Tedra Cobb, who says she’s raised more than $300,000 since the failed Stefanik stunt began.