That filing that the lawyers for the congressional committee looking into the events of January 6 dropped in court last week, part of the committee’s continuing effort to get John Eastman to turn over email correspondence, seems to have fallen quite hard on the heads of congressional Republicans. The whole smoke-fire thing has a new salience in their minds, and they’re lashing out, poor dears. From The Hill:

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said any criminal referral from the House “would probably have as much political taint on it as you can get.”

“To me it’s clearly politically driven,” he said. Braun said Democrats are scrambling to change up the political narrative in response to Biden’s moribund job approval ratings and predicted launching a federal prosecution of Trump would be viewed along partisan lines. “At least half the country would say it’s all politically motivated,” he said. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said “the Department of Justice has a high bar” to clear before launching an investigation of Trump and raised […]