For weeks now, Republicans in the House have been involved in an apparently pointless effort to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. It’s the first time the House has attempted to impeach someone other than the president since 1878, and the first time the House has ever tried to impeach someone below cabinet rank.
On the surface, it's a perfect example of the Freedom Caucus throwing another meaningless fit. The Senate has already let it be known they wouldn't follow through on this idiocy, it's unlikely that the House will finish before the end of the term, and while the Tea Party Republicans are still looking for someone to hang over political groups being treated like political groups, Koskinen was not even at the IRS when that non-scandal happened.
So what are conservatives thinking? They're thinking they can expand impeachment into an all-purpose bomb to blow up government.
If House conservatives press ahead with an impeachment of the embattled tax chief, they’d be voting to remove a relatively low-level executive-branch leader for one of the most minor offenses in American history, several impeachment experts told Politico. That decision could, effectively, lower the threshold for congressional punishment of an executive-branch authority from here on out — and ensure a wave of new proceedings against government officials who have tangled with Congress in the past.
Is Koskinen’s impeachment without merit? Of course. But Koskinen isn't the real target.
... “Would Hillary Clinton have been subject to impeachment in the aftermath of the attack? Why not? Add Benghazi to the pile.”
On the one hand, lowering the threshold would send a strong signal of discontent to the administration. Geyh noted that Congress would essentially “have a new weapon in the arsenal, which is not that you just have an Oversight hearing or insist the president have heads roll,” but actually bring up impeachment.
Republicans have rigged the government so that, even though their party receives millions of fewer votes, they can hold the House. However, they can't muster the support to capture the executive branch. What to do? Invent a new weapon that renders the executive branch useless.