We begin today’s roundup with Eugene Robinson on Donald Trump's conduct and Speaker Pelosi’s announcement that the House will begin drafting articles of impeachment against him:
President Trump apparently thought he could bluff and bluster his way out of being impeached, but he was wrong. His place of dishonor in history is now all but assured.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that the House will move forward with articles of impeachment was inevitable, and Trump has no one to blame but himself. No one forced him to try to strong-arm a foreign government into helping his bid for reelection. No one forced him to abuse the power of the presidency for personal gain. No one forced him to obstruct efforts by Congress to investigate his misdeeds.
Someone will force him to be held accountable, however. “Don’t mess with me,” a steely-eyed Pelosi warned a provocative reporter Thursday. Trump should have learned that lesson by now.
John Nichols at The Nation looks at the possible scope of those articles of impeachment:
At the same time, Pelosi’s statement provided encouragement for those who seek an impeachment that focuses not merely on the Ukraine affair itself but also on the president’s obstructions of inquiries into his wrongdoing, by Congress and federal law enforcement agencies. The speaker did not speak of specific articles, saying she would leave that to the committee chairs. But in a press conference following her announcement, Pelosi said, “We’re not going to be accomplices to his obstruction of justice.”
Noting that Trump “has refused to produce a single document and directed every witness not to testify,” Nadler and his Judiciary Committee colleagues focused a significant amount of attention on the obstruction of Congress during Wednesday’s hearing—with a particular emphasis on the concern of the framers of the Constitution about the prospect that presidents might assume “monarchical” or “kingly” powers.
Meanwhile, Andrew Rice at New York magazine explains how Attorney General William Barr is acting like Trump’s most powerful personal attorney:
As attorney general, Barr is at once the nation’s chief prosecutor and the president’s highest-ranking legal counselor, an inherently conflicted role when the president is accused of wrongdoing. But over the past year, with bureaucratic dexterity and bluff self-assurance, Barr has effectively turned the Justice Department to face down Trump’s adversaries.
At Bloomberg, Jonathan Bernstein argues there is no rush to vote on articles of impeachment:
As for timing, Pelosi’s urgency is probably warranted. But the rush to get this done before the Christmas recess — to get from drafting articles to approving them in committee to considering them on the House floor to voting on them in just two weeks — seems arbitrary. Perhaps Pelosi is worried that waiting until January could jeopardize votes that she now has. But if Democratic support is really that tenuous, then she’s risking a disaster in the Senate. I don’t see the downside to spending the next two weeks presenting the case carefully, gathering further evidence and then beginning deliberations in the judiciary committee when Congress returns.
And on a final note, at USA Today, Jason Sattler explains why we can’t wait for the election to address Trump’s constitutional violations:
Trump hasn’t just committed the worst misconduct of any chief executive in our history. He is inviting a foreign power to attack our elections, again.
On Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would “proceed with articles of impeachment” because “in America, no one is above the law.” But we’ve seen with this president that when your party is willing to be your accomplice, an election can put you above the law.
That’s why an election is no solution for a party determined to make sure it can be stolen.