President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Cory Lewandowski, is scheduled to appear today before the House Judiciary Committee as Democrats desperately struggle to breathe new life into their dubious impeachment gambit. However, as the Associated Press reports, “It’s unlikely that Democrats will get much new information. A devoted friend and supporter of the Republican president, Lewandowski isn’t expected to elaborate much beyond what he told [Robert] Mueller’s investigators last year. Mueller himself testified this summer, with no bombshells.”

House Democrats have been engaged in quite the game of semantics over the term “impeachment.” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) has hedged on whether he’s actually engaging in an impeachment investigation. CNN’s Chris Cuomo recently asked Nadler if what he was doing might be called an “impeachment inquiry.” Nadler replied, “It is not necessarily called an impeachment inquiry. That’s a made-up term without legal significance.” But then Nadler immediately twisted back, “It is, however, what we are doing.” In other words, Nadler’s trying to hang the scandal of impeachment on Trump without actually initiating impeachment proceedings.

What Nadler is engaged in is a desperate attempt to keep the Democrats’ “Trump is a criminal” narrative alive. It’s why they continue their partisan witch hunt for a crime they have yet to find.

Over the weekend, former Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy responded to Nadler’s duplicitous explanation on impeachment by stating, “This has been a disaster from day one and I don’t expect that to change. … You talk about mishandling something from day one, Nadler has mishandled — I mean, if we are debating nomenclature between an impeachment inquiry and an impeachment investigation, they’ve already lost.”

Nonetheless, Nadler and company got some good news Monday when New York state prosecutors issued subpoenas for the last eight years of Trump’s tax returns. This case is related to the Stormy Daniels fiasco, in which there are questions about whether Trump’s alleged hush-money payment broke campaign-finance laws. As we have warned in the past, this case could become problematic for Trump. In the meantime, this provides Nadler just the fuel he needs to convince his hard-left base that impeachment is a forgone conclusion, even when it isn’t.