Republicans’ risky impeachment strategy

By announcing that he was launching an impeachment probe of President Biden, whom Republicans allege of improper involvement in his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has embarked on a risky political path.

McCarthy’s gambit could, at least in the short term, help him stay in the speaker’s office by placating the hardline, pro-Trump members of the Freedom Caucus who were never very happy with his selection to begin with.

But impeachment will almost certainly not culminate in a Biden conviction and removal from office, an outcome no president in…