We’ve already put to rest the idea that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would schedule impeachment hearings for President Joe Biden at the request of five Republican House members. That’s just not in the cards as long as the Oval Office is in the hands of a member of her own party. But what about some general exploratory hearings over the chaotic troop withdrawal and its aftermath? After all, we’ve already been treated to endless renditions of how it’s Congress’ responsibility to conduct oversight of the Executive branch whenever the subject of hearings into the January 6th Capitol Hill riot have come up. Surely that same oversight is required when the Commander in Chief unleashes a debacle like the one we witnessed in Kabul over the past couple of weeks.

That’s the request that was sent to Pelosi by Congressman Chip Roy of Texas this week. Only Roy doesn’t want to wait for the next session to begin. He’s demanding that the Speaker summon back the lower chamber “immediately” and get started on the hearings. Given the number of members – including many Democrats – who have been raising their voices and demanding that all of our people be rescued, surely hearings are in order. But would she go along with the idea of an emergency session? (Free Beacon)

Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas) called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) to reconvene Congress for hearings on President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“Madam Speaker, you have a duty to call Congress back to Washington and begin hearings immediately,” Roy wrote. “America does not run away. We do not leave our brothers and sisters behind. We do not aid and abet the enemy.”

Pelosi has stalled efforts to apply congressional accountability to the Biden administration for its missteps in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Democrats blocked an oversight measure authored by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) on Tuesday, leaving questions unanswered for Republicans demanding transparency regarding the Afghan withdrawal. The House of Representatives has been out of session since July 30.

Pelosi did not return a request for comment.

Roy is probably overreaching with the various demands he put forward this week, which likely doesn’t help. In addition to “immediate” hearings, he also called on both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to resign. (I’m not sure if anyone told Chip Roy, but that would leave Nancy Pelosi as President, so he might want to rethink that one.)

While there have been plenty of Democrats calling for accountability and expressing their concerns over the botched evacuation, Nancy Pelosi has been in no hurry to formalize anything along those lines. In fact, the Democrats blocked an attempt on Tuesday to introduce an oversight measure on this subject. We haven’t heard a peep out of the Speaker’s office about any official congressional action regarding the people left behind enemy lines beyond some expressions of “concern” thus far and Pelosi’s office hasn’t responded to requests for comment.

I would put the odds of Congress being recalled “immediately” to do this at nearly zero. Taking any official action that casts blame on the Democratic President just keeps the story alive longer and increases the chances that public disenchantment with Joe Biden will rub off on the rest of his party as we head into a midterm election year. I don’t know if Nancy Pelosi believes she can completely bury the issue and not hold any hearings at all for the rest of the year, particularly given public sentiments on the subject, but I wouldn’t put it past her to try.

But how much longer will this hold? I suppose it’s possible that the Speaker believes that if they can hunker down long enough the public’s attention will eventually begin to shift over to the next shiny object that comes along. While it makes me sad to say it, that’s not entirely out of the question. But at least for now, people are hopping mad and the calls for hearings aren’t going to go away when the next session begins. Of course, every day they spend on hearings like these would be one less day they would have to work on passing Biden’s massive spending agenda.

I’d like to be less cynical, but the more I dwell on this, the less confident I become. It’s definitely conceivable that Speaker Pelosi is going to try to sweep this entire thing under the rug in the name of salvaging her party’s agenda.