Good Friday morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook audio briefing presented by BP.

And I'm Jake Sherman. The 14-hour Judiciary Committee hearing taught us precious little new about the

substance of impeachment, but to put on vivid display the Republicans' bloodlust for Joe Biden and his son Hunter,

undermining a central thesis of the former vice president's campaign that he's uniquely qualified

to bring down Washington's fevered partisanship. In fact, Thursday showed Biden himself might be the fever.

The modern-day congressional Republican Party has tended to focus its energy on people as emblematic

of perceived ills. Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder, for example, and at the moment, they have their eyes transfixed on Biden.

The majority of congressional Republicans say what House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said at our playbook event Thursday.

Trump would beat anyone in the Democratic field.

Data doesn't always agree with them.

But should Biden make it to the White House, or even if he doesn't, Republicans say they'll use any sliver of power they have to investigate, poke, and probe Biden and his son. It's easy to dismiss the House as an outlier, the more conservative and rambunctious of the two chambers. But in today's Republican Party on Capitol, he'll the loudest common denominator tends to prevail. Just to ask

Lindsey Graham, who after months abadgering from Trump-aligned conservatives, decided to use his

cloud as judiciary chairman to open an inquest into Biden-related matters, something he had vowed to

avoid. Of course, the furor might subside as it did with Clinton, but Republicans say they find

Trump's impeachment particularly egregiousious matched only by the conduct of the

Bidens. Democrats say the vice president did nothing wrong, and there's scant evidence he did.

But to Republicans, the facts are quite simple. Hunter was on a board of a prominent company in a

country where his father conducted foreign policy. Politically, it's a digestible message. And

substantively to the GOP, it deserves sustained attention.

And now there are Republicans who are already vowing to put it into law that children of presidents and vice presidents cannot serve on foreign boards, inspired by Biden.

The impeachment drama continued late last night. Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler postponed approval of the

articles until this morning. Just after 11 p.m. after a 14-hour debate, Nadler pushed pause,

...