On Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives will formalize its impeachment inquiry against the president with a vote on Thursday.

Theoretically, Republicans should be relieved. After all, they've been pretending to wring their hands over the transparency of the impeachment hearings that half of the people attending are Republicans. They ordered pizza in the SCIF to try to impede a closed hearing, after all! And they brought their phones in, too, despite the fact that it was a secure area that personal cell phones were not allowed in. They were obviously very concerned.

The supposed justification for this congressional temper tantrum was that Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and the like were conducting impeachment proceedings in secret in order to somehow mislead the country into thinking that there wasn't a case against the president. Does this make sense, considering that a federal judge has ruled that the current proceedings have been completely legitimate?

No.

But, regardless, many House Republicans insisted that the only way to conduct the impeachment investigation without it being a sham was to hold a formal House vote. They should be happy that Pelosi decided to do just that.

Of course, that's not what happened.

Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, tweeted:

"It's been 34 days since Nancy Pelosi unilaterally declared her impeachment inquiry.

Today's backtracking is an admission that this process has been botched from the start.

We will not legitimize the Schiff/Pelosi sham impeachment."

Over in the Senate, Mitch McConnell similarly clarified that, no, Pelosi is still bad:

"House Democrats' impeachment resolution would just codify their unfair process. Here's what it contemplates:

1. No due process now
2. Maybe some later
3. But only if they feel like

No American, the president or anyone else, should be subjected to this kind of unfairness."

And Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado rounded out the trifecta of backpedaling with this gem:

"It is too little too late for Pelosi to "formalize" a tainted and corrupt process against @realDonaldTrump. After weeks of soviet-style secrecy and withholding information from the public, Pelosi is attempting to legitimize a total sham."

If the Republican reaction to Pelosi's announcements has proven anything, it's that all their 'deep concern' about the legitimacy of their inquiry was an act. They don't care about transparency or House votes, because of course they don't. What they do care about, however, is pretending the House of Representatives doesn't have the authority to carry out a process that was specifically given to it by the Constitution. Their main goal is to make sure Donald Trump is allowed to do whatever he wants, if they have to purposely undermine faith in the U.S. Constitution to do that, oh well.