In the past few weeks, I’ve often discussed various issues that challenge the GOP rank-and-file, but honesty requires that we also discuss issues and challenges that face Democrats today. Chief among those challenges is the issue of impeachment of the current White House resident, and Democrats remain dramatically divided.
Most Democrats I’m aware of are strongly, deeply in favor of impeachment and feel that we need to have impeach Donald Trump immediately in order to save the country from a POTUS who believes he can redirect the path of a hurricane, either with a Nuclear Bomb or with a Sharpie. Either “presidential” action shows a lack of comprehension that is simply beyond the pale.
I have to state that I’m sympathetic to that pro-impeachment view. I would prefer an end to Trump’s dark reign far sooner rather than later. If it could be, it wouldn’t be too soon. But there are realities and difficulties that need to be faced, and it’s because of those difficulties that we have to engage in considerably more discussion.
Politico reported this week that Democrats face a “messy push on impeachment.”
Lawmakers faced frequently contentious town halls during their six-week August recess as activists pressured Democratic holdouts to support impeachment proceedings. A steady trickle of new endorsements for action followed, and a majority of the House’s 235 Democrats now backs an impeachment inquiry.
Senior Democrats, however, are sending mixed messages on the prospect of trying to oust Trump.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler stunned many with his recent declaration that the House had already launched “formal impeachment proceedings.” The New York Democrat followed up with a series of court filings demanding expedited access to special counsel Robert Mueller’s evidence and witnesses in order to further his committee's “impeachment investigation.”
Yet Speaker Nancy Pelosi has continued to resist that posture, telling colleagues in a caucuswide call late last month, “The public isn’t there on impeachment.”
The technical status of the House drive toward impeachment may hinge on whether the courts agree with Nadler's interpretation, and September is packed with opportunities for the federal judiciary to weigh in. But the bottom line is that Pelosi will have the ultimate say.
The article goes on to state that several senior Democrats in the House remain unclear and uncertain on the current status and posture of the Democrats on impeachment.
“I don't think the public is really ... clear about what’s going on,” said Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) on the state of play. “Whether that’s an intentional strategy or not, I don’t know. But I think that’s clearly the case.”
Yarmuth — who has long been in favor of impeaching Trump — said he expects top Democrats, led by Nadler, to make it much clearer in September that the House is indeed moving ahead with the impeachment process.
“I would bet that before mid-October, there will be actual articles of impeachment drafted by the committee. I don’t think there’s much doubt about that,” Yarmuth said in an interview this week. “I think Jerry’s committed to doing that, and I think, a significant majority of the committee is there.
I myself find Yarmuth’s confusion to be confusing, largely because in the wake of the Mueller hearing nearly a month ago, Chairman Nadler has been quite clear that the Judiciary Committee is indeed moving forward with a current and active impeachment Inquiry.
He said the Judiciary Committee will decide likely by the end of the year whether to recommend bringing articles of impeachment to the House floor.
“This is formal impeachment proceedings,” Nadler told CNN’s Erin Burnett Thursday evening. “We are investigating all the evidence, gathering the evidence. And we will [at the] conclusion of this — hopefully by the end of the year — vote to vote articles of impeachment to the House floor. Or we won’t. That’s a decision that we’ll have to make. But that’s exactly the process we’re in right now.”
Nadler said it was important not to get lost in the “semantics” of the discussion and said while the probe would end with some type of vote on whether the recommend impeachment, right now the committee is interested in “investigating the evidence.” A big part of the committee’s investigation
“The fact is, we are doing an investigation. We are investigating the facts, investigating the evidence,” Nadler said. “We are going into court to get witnesses all with a view toward deciding and recommending to the House whether to impeach the President.”
This wasn’t the first time this had come up. In their legal filing to gain access to the Mueller report’s grand jury information, the Judiciary Committee stated on July 28 that this testimony could impact impeachment.
House Democrats are investigating whether to impeach President Trump, according to a Friday petition for a D.C. federal judge to release grand jury information from the investigation of former special counsel Robert Mueller.
“This Committee is conducting an investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment,” the filing reads.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) sent the petition for a tailored array of information from the Mueller investigation to D.C. chief judge Beryl Howell, who will decide whether to release the protected material to Congress.
Nader also specifically stated in July that Mueller’s testimony before the committee had been an inflection point which moved them further toward impeachment.
“I think it was an inflection point that it broke the administration’s lie, the attorney general’s lie, that the President was totally exonerated by the Mueller report,” Nadler responded. “Quite the contrary. There was very damning evidence put forward on the record.”
On Friday, the House Judiciary Committee filed a petition to a federal D.C judge as a means to begin investigating whether or not they should begin impeachment proceedings.:
[Edit: Also here on the day of the Mueller hearing Pelosi, Nadler, Schiff and Cummings all stated together that their intention was to contiue their investigations of Trump including the Mueller revelations but not limited to them and that impeachment was most definitely on the table pending the resolution of their various court motions pending subpoenas and documents (This is noted starting at 15:09)
Let me repeat, just for the record: the Judiciary Committee right now is in the midst of an impeachment inquiry which began as early as late July with the goal of drafting articles of final impeachment, hopefully, by the end of the year. Nadler says that they’ve already received draft articles and they may draw up their own and that their intention is to get a court order for testimony from Don McGahn, Corey Lewandowski, Rick Dearborn, and other Trump cohorts who are specifically mentioned in the Mueller report.
Some would argue, as I’ve often heard: Don’t we already know enough to impeach Trump right now? Isn’t he Individual-1 in the Michael Cohen case? Didn’t Mueller specifically say that he was “not exonerated” of obstruction of justice and provide at least 10 examples of that obstruction? Isn’t his literal—and illegal—theft of money from disaster relief, and our troops and the education of their children to pay for his border wall, and the indefinite detention of migrant children enough? Then there is his randomly tweeting out classified satellite photos from his briefing room and taking a Sharpie to National Weather Service hurricane projections.
Haven’t we already seen enough?
Well yeah, some of us absolutely have. That’s why there have already been two impeachment votes attempted in the House, the first in December 2017 and the second this past July, both of which miserably failed.
In 2017, it went like this:
House Democrats overwhelmingly joined Republicans on Wednesday to defeat an attempt to impeach President Donald Trump. But 58 Democrats supported the bid to consider impeachment over the objections of House Democratic leaders, who viewed the measure as a distraction in a Republican-controlled Congress.
The motion to sideline the measure — killing the effort — was approved 364-58, with four Democrats voting present.
The vote was forced by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who introduced articles of impeachment describing Trump as a bigot who incites hate and has demeaned the presidency.
In July, it went like this:
Using a procedural tactic known as a privileged resolution, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) forced the House to take action on articles of impeachment — something Democratic leaders opposed.
But the House did not directly vote on whether Trump should be impeached. The vote was instead about whether Green’s impeachment resolution should be set aside (“tabled”), as leaders of both parties wanted.
A “yea” vote meant shelving impeachment for now (though not necessarily forever). A “no” vote would have meant keeping Green’s resolution on the House floor and proceeding to an actual vote on impeaching Trump.
As expected, though, Republicans and most Democrats came together to vote “yes,” tabling the measure, 332-95. The overall split in the Democratic Party: 137 voted to table and 95 voted against doing so.
Green’s move was a response to Trump’s racist tweets from Sunday, when the president wrote that “‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen” who came from “corrupt” countries should “go back” where they came from. The tweet appeared to refer to Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).
Both of these votes failed, obviously, but there is something to note between them. In the first attempt, 58 Democrats voted in favor of the measure, while the second time 95 voted in favor. After Robert Mueller testified in July, the number of Democrats supporting an impeachment Inquiry rose to 117 at the beginning of August. As of the end of August, that count had risen to 131.
What I see there is steady progress. Of course, the next question is: What’s the hold up? Why aren’t all Democrats on board with impeachment right now?
Well, for starters it’s because most Americans don’t want it, and the thirst for it is actually weakening lately.
But the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows enthusiasm for impeachment may be waning and that could leave the Democrats’ 2020 hopefuls with a voter base that sees things differently and a complicated issue to tackle as their primary campaign revs up.
Overall, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows a decline compared to last month in the number of people who say they want to hold impeachment hearings now.
The latest survey finds that 21 percent of registered voters say that there is enough evidence for Congress to begin impeachment hearings now. In June, 27 percent in the poll the same thing, a six-point drop in one month – though that survey was of Americans, not registered voters.
Even among Democrats that support has been slipping since Mueller’s testimony, although it is up among Republicans and Independents.
Support for impeachment proceedings against President Trump has slipped among Democratic voters following special counsel Robert Mueller’s public testimony before Congress last week, according to a poll released on Thursday.
The Hill-HarrisX survey found 67 of Democratic voters support impeachment proceedings against Trump, marking a four-point drop from an identical poll that was conducted in May.
The number of Republicans and independents who support impeachment, meanwhile, is up since Mueller’s July 24 testimony.
Seventeen percent of GOP voters say they would support an impeachment inquiry, an increase of 8 percent. More than a third — 35 percent of independent voters said the same, which represents a 9-point bump.
Overall, voters in the latest poll were split evenly on the issue at 41 percent, while 18 percent remain unsure.
Some would argue: So what? This is a moral issue, not a popular one. Rep. Al Green already made his purely moral argument for impeachment twice—and he failed twice. In response, I would argue that 67% of the Democratic caucus is 157 out of 235. So it’s likely that the ceiling of Democratic support for impeachment probably won’t exceed 157 votes, unless there's a dramatic uptick in public support. Impeachment requires 218 Votes on the floor of the House and 41% public support is not gonna cut that, let alone generate the 67 votes in the Senate required to actually remove a sitting president.
It could be argued that public support for Nixon’s impeachment began similarly slowly and that only after months of hearings before the Watergate committee did that support rise and Nixon’s own polling finally fell.
Shortly before the committee undertook its impeachment votes, a Harris Poll showed that 53 percent of Americans supported an impeachment of Nixon by the House. The same poll showed that 47 percent thought he should be convicted in a Senate trial, 34 percent thought he should be acquitted, and the rest were unsure.[80] A Gallup Poll taken around the same time revealed that Nixon's favorability rating had fallen to 24 percent.
So why, then, doesn’t House Speaker Nancy Pelosi call for hearings?
Because for one thing, it’s not Pelosi’s call. Impeachment begins in the Judiciary Committee, and that’s Nadler’s ground. Further, Nadler’s committee has issued dozens of subpoenas already. The problem is that Trump, his lawyers, and the Department of Justice are flat-out ignoring them via the bogus claim that they have “absolute immunity,” which doesn’t exist.
The White House on Monday directed former White House Counsel Don McGahn to defy a subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, and the Justice Department released a corresponding legal opinion arguing that McGahn is not obligated to answer lawmakers’ questions.
The move deals a blow to House Democrats, who have sought testimony from McGahn after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report detailed President Donald Trump’s efforts to shut down the Russia probe.
“The Department of Justice has provided a legal opinion stating that, based on long-standing, bipartisan, and constitutional precedent, the former counsel to the president cannot be forced to give such testimony, and Mr. McGahn has been directed to act accordingly,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “This action has been taken in order to ensure that future presidents can effectively execute the responsibilities of the Office of the Presidency.”
Similarly, when former Trump assistant Hope Hicks testified before the committee, White House lawyers used the DOJ opinion provided to block former White House counsel Don McGahn’s testimony to deny Hicks answering 155 questions. Those questions included asking her where desks in the White House were located.
Both Nixon and Bill Clinton had made somewhat similar claims of immunity against lawsuits during their time in office, and both ultimately failed to block testimony. This ploy by Trump and Barr is likely to fail as well, as the House Judiciary Committee filed a suit to compel McGahn’s testimony on Aug. 7.
The House Judiciary Committee asked a federal court on Wednesday to force one of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s star witnesses to testify on Capitol Hill over objections from the White House, a crucial move as House Democrats consider whether to bring articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.
The Democrat-led panel filed a lawsuit to enforce a subpoena against former White House counsel Don McGahn, in a long-awaited effort to secure his testimony and defeat the White House’s efforts to block former top advisers from testifying about their West Wing tenure.
In a 54-page filing, the committee made clear that it is conducting an impeachment investigation, employing its strongest language to date to suggest that the panel is seriously weighing efforts to recommend Trump’s removal from office.
“McGahn is the Judiciary Committee’s most important fact witness in its consideration of whether to recommend articles of impeachment and its related investigation of misconduct by the president, including acts of obstruction of justice described in the special counsel’s report,” the filing states.
Impeachment is as much of a political process as anything. It’s also as much a matter of public relations as it is a legal process. Right now, Trump’s impeachment is pending testimony from McGahn and others, and that is waiting on a federal judge to issue a court order upholding the various subpoenas that have been issued.
I’ve heard arguments that Congress should “show some backbone” and just defund the DOJ or the Treasury Department in order to force the documents and testimony they’ve requested. To that, I say that holding sections of the government hostage in that manner is a Republican hard-ball move that was used against Clinton and Obama. Trump also attempted to hold Congress hostage in order to force them to cough up funding for his wall. In none of those instances did they get what they wanted, and in the end, they lost public support in the process. Democrats could play ttat game, but I don't see that it’s a winning game - and by winning I mean one that gets us to 218 votes for Impeachment as well as 67 votes to remove in the Senate.
Other have argued that they should just have the House Sergeant at Arms or Capitol Police go out and arrest McGahn and put him in the House jail. Yeah, well, the Capitol Police have a fairly limited jurisdiction of just a few blocks outside the Capitol building itself, and arresting someone anywhere outside of that would be considered kidnapping.
Signed into law in October 1992, the United States Capitol Police Jurisdiction Act granted authority to any on-duty Capitol Police officer to make arrests and enforce federal and District of Columbia laws beyond the bounds of the Capitol grounds or in the presence of lawmakers.
Although the Capitol Police are focused on protecting the Capitol complex, their officers patrol neighborhoods surrounding the Capitol in an area bound by H Street to the north, Potomac Avenue to the south, Third Street to the west and Seventh Street to the east.
For the record, the U.S. Department of Justice building is on 7th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. to the west, three blocks out of Capitol Police jurisdiction.
Also, this probably still wouldn’t compel McGahn’s testimony, because he’s not the problem—Trump’s lawyers are the problem. Simply put, the Judiciary Committee has to win its case in court and have a court order generated to compel McGahn’s and the others’ testimony. If he defies the court, the court sends him to jail with the help of U.S. Marshals.
Most experts expect the district court’s decision in October and assuming the case isn’t appealed and doesn’t go to the U.S. Supreme Court, we may start having real hearings with real witnesses shortly after.
That is exactly what Nadler is explaining to CNN’s Erin Burnett near the top of this post, and she’s just not getting it. Impeachment is about public relations, but it is also about the law and the House Judiciary Committee is going to follow the law, use the courts, and do this methodically and patiently, even if many are calling for them to “do it now, now, NOW!”
Once they can have real hearings with real documents, will that bolster the support of the American people? Will it push more than 218 Democrats, and maybe more Republicans other than Justin Amash, to vote for the measure? Will it generate any reaction at all from #MoscowMitch and the Senate, let alone have an ice cube’s chance during Ragnarok of getting to the 67 votes required to remove this fracktard from office?
I have no idea.
No one has any idea.
I would hope that having these hearings will sway public opinion, that it will generate enough outrage to take Trump’s poll numbers down to Nixon’s final numbers and that that might be enough to break the stranglehold that Trump has so far had on the GOP Congress and Senate and this issue might actually have a chance to be genuinely and fairly resolved. Hope alone probably isn't enough to get this done.
Once again, I sympathize strongly with those who wish this person gone from our government. I absolutely want him out, the sooner the better.I frankly agree with Nancy Pelosi that this man deserves to go to prison. If he ultimately doesn’t get impeached and/or removed but still goes to prison, I’m fine with it. In fact, I’d be ecstatic.
But if we’re going to truly do this at all, then it’s going to require doing it the right way. The worst thing that could happen is for it to be seen by most of the public as partisan sabotage and a weak try at a post-election coup. It shouldn’t matter if the 2020 election primary season is already underway before the subpoena issue is resolved. It’s not about that, and it should never be about that. This is for the good of the country, if not the good of the world. If we can’t successfully make that case, this whole thing isn’t worth it—although even if we do make that case, it’s no guarantee of success, either. At the very least, as I've long argued, Congress should put together an extensive censure motion listing all of Trump’s legal and character flaws and make that case to the American people. If they can blast Rep. Ilhan Omar for her intemperate tweets about Israel and lobbyists they can certainly put together some scathing admonishments for all the bullcrap Trump has pulled, and that might even be a bypartisan document.
Another thing we can’t let happen: We can’t let our frustration over how slow and difficult this process truly is draw us into cynicism and anger at our own team. We don’t always agree on everything either tactically or strategically. We should debate and even bicker, but we have to remember that we’re a team. When push comes to shove, and when Democrats who are currently in largely red districts that were previously won by Trump may appear to be staying on the sidelines of the impeachment issue, for the time being, we have to cut them a little slack because the real challenge hasn’t really even come up yet.
When it does, they’re going to need our support. Even if we lose some of them on impeachment—and we might—we need to keep them on our side to maintain our majority. We don’t need every Democrat to stick their necks out. We just need enough of them.
We have to be prepared for the next fight after this, which is removal. Then comes the next fight in 2020, and control of the Senate as well as the presidency. Undoing Trump presence in the White House is primary, but undoing the damage he’s done and is doing to the world comes in a close second. Mitch McConnell can not remain Senate majority leader if we’re going to do any real clean-up of the mess he’s made. I understand how crazy-making having to put up with this administration can be, and how it seems unfathomable and incomprehensible that the entire nation hasn’t already risen up in abject disgust and revulsion against this … man.
We don't need everybody to rise up in unison: We just need enough people to do it. We just need to win—whatever it takes.