As House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s impeachment crusade has unfolded over the last year, the Kentucky Republican has become something of a punch-line to an unfortunate joke.

Following months of humiliating failures, Politico recently reported that behind the scenes, GOP officials were quietly admitting that Comer’s campaign against President Joe Biden has been “hobbled by embarrassing setbacks.” Punchbowl News, meanwhile, quoted a House GOP leadership aide who said Comer and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan were “becoming the chairmen who cried wolf.”

It was against this backdrop that Comer held his latest anti-Biden hearing last week, desperately hoping it would bolster the broader partisan endeavor. It instead became the latest in a series of duds.

Soon after, Rep. Tim Burchett was asked about a possible impeachment vote on the House floor targeting the Democratic incumbent. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” the far-right Tennessee Republican replied.

Comer appears to have come to a similar conclusion. The Hill reported:

House Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) suggested the impeachment vote against President Biden may not be the “best path” and said he instead thinks criminal referrals will be the way to go. “I believe that the best path to accountability is criminal referrals,” Comer told Newsmax hosts Thursday.

Right off the bat, it’s worth noting that making criminal referrals to the Justice Department in this matter will almost certainly be pointless. It’s been the Kentucky congressman’s Plan B for quite a while, but the strategy is rooted in the idea that Comer and his cohorts will package what they’ve come up with, send it federal prosecutors, and include a note effectively asking law enforcement to take the matter seriously.

This will almost certainly fail. If the Oversight Committee chairman couldn’t clear a modest threshold while trying to make his case to his own Republican colleagues, what makes him think he’ll clear a higher threshold while making a pitch to federal prosecutors — who are required to actually have and present real evidence in a courtroom while complying with legal standards?

What’s more, it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees: The whole point of the anti-Biden impeachment inquiry was to work towards an impeachment vote. That’s no longer a realistic option: Even if GOP leaders scheduled such a vote, no one seriously believes it would succeed.

It’s why Comer’s “best path” comments stood out: It was the GOP lawmaker’s way of acknowledging that the path he wanted to take is now effectively closed, leaving him with no choice but to ask the Justice Department to give him a hand.

When prosecutors put Comer’s pitch in a circular file, it will quietly bring the entire fiasco to an ignominious end.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.