Here’s an important point from Greg Sargent:

Among Democrats, the conventional reading of the incoming GOP House majority goes like this: Republicans will commence investigations with the care and judiciousness of a toddler throwing spaghetti against the wall. Most won’t stick. But if Republicans turn up something to damage Joe Biden’s presidency, they will have accomplished their mission.

That is no doubt one GOP goal. But there’s a less obvious way that Republicans can wield House probes to political advantage. If they can confuse voters — and seduce the news media — into treating any and all congressional oversight as inevitably politically motivated, they will succeed in a whole different fashion.

Obviously, all congressional investigations have a political component. The investigation into the use of performing enhancing drugs in baseball was a chance for politicians to grandstand a bit and gain some national recognition, even though there was no clear partisan agenda involved. In cases where the investigation is in response to overwhelming public demand, there’s almost always one party that is on the defensive, which usually means their committee participants will spend their time diminishing the probe rather than working to advance it.

But this doesn’t mean all congressional investigations are partisan food fights that produce unreliable results. The most important factor is the motivation of the party that launched the investigation in the first place, which is the party in control. The second most important factor is how the investigation is conducted. Is it designed to get to the truth, hold people accountable and lead to legislative solutions, or simply to embarrass the administration or demonize witnesses? The last consideration is the behavior of the minority party. Are they on board with the goals or are they, rightly or wrongly, treating the whole process as a joke? In some sense, the quality of the investigation doesn’t depend on the minority, but they can sometimes diminish its utility (again, rightly or wrongly).

For the media, it shouldn’t be hard to make these kinds of distinctions. Even before Kevin McCarthy publicly admitted that the endless Benghazi probes were designed to soften up Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate, it was obvious that the effort wasn’t aimed at improving embassy security or assigning a fair or reasonable degree of responsibility for the tragedy. The Democrats were correct to treat it the whole thing as a partisan force, even if there were was initially a valid reason for an investigation.

In theory, there could be a valid reason to investigate Hunter Biden if it might show that Joe Biden committed some crime or betrayed the public trust while serving as vice-president. For the same reason, the Democrats who control the Senate could investigate Eric, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Jared Kushner. If the goal were to protect against nepotism then these investigations would also explore possible legislation to address the issue in future administrations. In that case, the hearings would look at both sides and not seek partisan advantage.

Nothing like this is being contemplated by the House Republicans. And I’m pretty sure that this will be the pattern with all their investigations. The media should ask the Republicans what they’re trying to accomplish, what laws they want to change, what investments they want to make…and if they don’t have a plausible answer to those questions, they should treat the spectacle as a partisan sham. By the same token, if the Democrats can’t answers those questions about any inquiry they launch, they should also not expect to get breathless coverage.

All congressional investigations are not equal and they aren’t that hard to judge.