After the dam burst on impeachment this week, emboldened Democrats moved aggressively to resurrect their opposition to President Trump’s judicial legacy -- a quest that, just days ago, seemed like a political loser for them.

Kamala Harris, whose flagging presidential campaign is stuck at 5% in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, on Friday called for a formal impeachment inquiry into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. That news came a week and a half after the New York Times created a media firestorm over its reporting -- and subsequent major correction -- of a new college-era allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh.

Initial calls for impeachment appeared to fizzle by the end of the week after news that the alleged victim declined to talk about the alleged drunken incident in question and her friends said she didn’t recall it.

But days after House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry into whether Trump pressured the new Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, Harris once again demanded Kavanaugh’s impeachment.

Harris, along with every other Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, also used the House impeachment inquiry into Trump to reprise their questioning of Steven Menashi, a White House counsel Trump nominated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Judiciary Committee Democrats on Friday sent Menashi a letter urging him to provide his “knowledge of or involvement with any events related to the telephone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky” or the related whistleblower complaint at the heart of the impeachment investigation.

“As the Senate Judiciary Committee considers your nomination to the Second Court of Appeals, it is vital to understand the work that you have done at the White House Counsel’s Office,” the senators wrote.

The letter included seven detailed questions asking Menashi “when and how” he became aware of the Zelensky phone call and the whistleblower complaint and whether he worked or advised on any matter related to them.

In late August, Democrats and liberal commentators, including MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, experienced a media backlash after falsely accusing Menashi, who is of Middle Eastern ancestry including Jewish grandparents, of supporting “white nationalism.”

The charge was based on a law school journal article Menashi wrote defending Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish homeland, in which he mentioned that “ethno-nationalism remains a common and accepted feature of liberal democracy that is consistent with current state practice and international law.” Maddow and others never mentioned the context of the article as a defense of Israel as a Jewish homeland.

Republicans are lambasting the twin Democratic efforts to reprise their opposition to Kavanaugh and Menashi as acts of desperation that will backfire.

Mike Davis, a former aide on Republican Senate Judiciary Committee and at the White House, who played a key role in the confirmations of Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch, has repeatedly said he welcomed a repeat performance of Democrats’ attacks on Kavanaugh as the one-year anniversary of his confirmation battle is marked.

Even though Democrats regained the House majority in 2018, exit polling showed that the fierce partisan battle over decades-old uncorroborated sexual harassment allegations against the high court nominee played a role in the defeat of Senate candidates in Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota and Florida.

But that hasn’t deterred Harris, who announced her call for a formal impeachment inquiry into Kavanaugh in an essay for Elle magazine published Friday morning. In it, she included a Sept. 17 letter she wrote to the House Judiciary Committee, urging the panel to “take appropriate action to investigate recent reports about” Kavanaugh and to hold him “accountable for his prior conduct and testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

“If we want to live in a country where women are believed and given access to the justice they deserve, we must roll up our sleeves and get to work holding our leaders accountable,” she wrote. “Especially those who serve on the highest court of the land.”

Even though the House committee is “rightfully busy” with the impeachment inquiry into Trump, Harris argued that it “shouldn’t let a crowded schedule get in the way of justice.”

On Friday, Davis said Harris’ call indicates that “Democrats want to lose again in 2020, over a Supreme Court fight.”

As for the Democrats’ letter to Menashi, Davis said it showed that they are now using the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s call with the Zelensky to overreach when it comes to the president’s judicial nominees.

“They’re grasping at straws,” he told RealClearPolitics. “The Democrats have already lost control of their impeachment witch-hunt against the president, grasping at straws and using impeachment as an excuse to attempt to block a federal appellate court nominee who even the liberal American Bar Association rated as ‘well-qualified’ to serve — which the Democrats say is their ‘gold standard.’”