One “yuge” wrench was thrown into congressional Democrats’ impeachment plans Tuesday courtesy two small but vitally important events.

First, decidedly left-wing “journalist” Tom Brokaw declared that, unlike with the impeachment inquiry against disgraced former President Richard Nixon, this time Democrats lack “the goods” needed to take out current President Donald Trump.

“The big difference [between then and now] is … they still don’t have what you would call the goods on this president in terms of breaking the law and being an impeachable target for them,” he said Tuesday afternoon to MSNBC host Andrew Mitchell.

“They’re going to start the process,” he continued, referring to plans by Democrats to hold a formal impeachment vote Thursday, “but they don’t have the same kind of clarity that the people who were opposed to Richard Nixon had because it was so clear that these were criminal acts that he was involved in.”

In short, they have no REAL bombshells and smoking guns. It’s all smoke and mirrors — including even the formal impeachment vote.

Listen:

(Source: MSNBC

Second, a slew of swing district Democrats began expressing doubts about the Thursday vote, including New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew:

NEW: “I would imagine that I’m not voting for it,” Dem @CongressmanJVD says about the impeachment process resolution the House will take up Thursday saying he hasn’t been supportive of impeachment all along. — Alex Moe (@AlexNBCNews) October 29, 2019

“The odds are, if you really look at it objectively: he’ll be impeached here, they’ll then go to the Senate, he’ll be vindicated. So, he will still be the president and he will be able to go around and say, ‘I have been vindicated because I was not impeached,'” he said to Newsweek.

“I don’t know that we gain that much from that. I know what we lose: I know that we split people further apart; I know that we split the country apart even more; I know that we, regardless of what people say, get less work done.”

Rep. Collin Peterson, whose district in Minnesota reportedly voted for Trump over then-Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton by 30 points, is expected to vote similarly.

“[B]ased on a statement he issued in September about the impeachment inquiry, which his office highlighted, it’s likely Peterson will not support the measure,” Newsweek notes. “He previously said an inquiry would likely become a ‘failed process’ that further divides the country, and that anyone who thought it would “constrain” Trump was ‘fooling themselves.'”

And then there’s Rep. Anthony Brindisi, another swing-district Democrat. Speaking with Politico, he complained that the Democrats were moving too quickly.

“It looks like things are moving quicker than a lot of people had anticipated. For me, I’m in no rush here,” he said, adding that he wasn’t certain how he’d vote Thursday.

All this bodes well for congressional Republicans. While they have complained about the Democrats holding an informal impeachment inquiry — namely because Democrats have been exploiting the lack of formality to play unfair — the formal resolution put forth by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would reportedly leave both Republicans and the president in the same bind:

This Pelosi non-impeachment resolution is hilarious. It goes out of its way to avoid authorizing a specific investigation and delegation of authority and instead repeatedly references an “investigation” that under the rules of the House doesn’t even exist. https://t.co/KYIoKkL31J — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 29, 2019

Pelosi’s resolution references “the existing House of Representatives inquiry,” but no such House of Representatives investigation exists, because the House of Representatives never authorized one. And this resolution doesn’t either. pic.twitter.com/blss6WWPBh — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 29, 2019

Pelosi and House Democrats are clearly trying to play games with the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. and are hoping that the federal judges won’t notice their sleight of hand in trying to claim unlimited impeachment investigative authority without actually voting to delegate it. — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 29, 2019

Democrats can’t up and authorize a real investigation now, because that would be an admission that previous demands were unauthorized, nuking their current case. So they’re left to play cutesy games where they reference a non-existent investigation and hope nobody will notice. — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 29, 2019

The resolution would even reportedly grant House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff the power to continue releasing selective transcripts that benefit Democrats:

Some have argued that all this resolution “does is legitimize his selective leaking. Now he can release excerpts as he sees fit without having to shovel them through CNN. If a testimony helps Donald Trump, he can simply hold it back and no doubt he will.”

Even top Democrat leaders have essentially admitted that the resolution is a sham.

“This is not an impeachment resolution,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said to reporters Tuesday morning.

In her own statement to reporters a day earlier, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted the resolution was “not an impeachment resolution.”

Dem leaders downplay Thursday vote on impeachment: @LeaderHoyer says “This is not an impeachment resolution. I don’t know what an impeachment resolution is.” Hoyer said the vote merely lays out “process” of moving “into a phase when we have public hearings.” — Susan Ferrechio (@susanferrechio) October 29, 2019

LMAO. Nancy Pelosi admitted, “It’s not an impeachment resolution.” It’s a political circus meant to take out a president via their corrupt media partners because Democrats know they cannot beat him at the ballot box. And she doesn’t have the votes. ? — thebradfordfile™ (@thebradfordfile) October 29, 2019

Then what is it …!?