Why the Democrats decided to open impeachment proceedings


Ryan Grim gives the detailed background that led speaker Nancy Pelosi to finally back calls to open an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. He says that the 44 so-called ‘frontliners’, those congressional Democrats who said that impeachment proceedings would harm their own re-election chances and who, along with Pelosi, had been attacking the Squad (Aleander Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley) and other progressives, had received a shellacking from their constituents when they went back home for the recess and heard that they were going to be primaried for not standing up to Trump.

ON WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, as Democrats prepped for a series of private meetings, it was clear that nerves had been frayed. August had been a challenge for the party’s rank-and-file, as activists and angry citizens back home browbeat them at town halls, grocery stores, and local events for the party’s unwillingness to impeach President Donald Trump. “We spent all summer getting the shit kicked out of us back home,” said one Democrat who received such treatment. The day before, former Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski had made a mockery of the Judiciary Committee’s interview of him, betraying open contempt for the process and the people running it.

But there was a bigger problem, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told his colleagues that day. Raskin, the highest-ranking progressive on the periphery of leadership, is a constitutional attorney and had long been calling for impeachment on principle. But politics now mattered too, he argued, and the party’s passivity was causing real political pain for rank-and-file members of Congress, particularly those holding back support of impeachment to honor the party leadership’s opposition to it. In order to placate a small handful of frontliners — perhaps as few as seven or eight — the entire party was being dragged down and routinely humiliated by Trump’s contempt for the rule of law.

Pelosi didn’t seem to understand the shift that was taking place under her feet. Reporter John Harwood asked an aide to Pelosi over the weekend if the news changed her calculus on impeachment and got back the reply: “no. see any GOP votes for it?”

Then Monday night, six of the most vocal opponents of impeachment, the type Raskin was referring to at last week’s meeting, published a joint op-ed in the Washington Post, calling for impeachment proceedings to begin: The authors, all frontline freshmen, included Spanberger, Slotkin, Gil Cisneros of California, Houlahan, Luria, and Sherrill.

Even if polls say that majorities in swing districts would prefer Democrats legislate and cooperate rather than focus on impeachment, those numbers don’t tell the whole story. First, they ignore intensity, as the most active Democrats — the ones who show up to town halls and knock on doors — are also the most likely to be supportive of impeachment, and winning them over has major reelection advantages, while angering them comes with downsides.

I never did understand the argument against impeachment that said that there was no point since the Republican controlled senate would never convict Trump. On major issues, each branch of government should do what it thinks is right and not simply do what the other branches might go along with. For the House of Representatives to not do something because they think the Senate won’t is as pusillanimous as senate majority leader Mitch McConnell saying that he will not bring any legislation to the floor that he thinks Trump will not sign. That is an abdication of one’s role and serves only to give more power to an already too-powerful presidency.

Trump clearly thinks he can do anything he likes and that because Republicans are backing him, that the Democrats will cave. It has worked so far. The Ukraine investigation and the impeachment inquiry is the first major challenge of that belief

You can fully expect Trump and his supporters to bluster that this is a wild-goose chase and that there is nothing to the case while at the same time trying to limit the amount of information given out. Already we see that after promising to release the unredacted transcript of his phone call with the Ukrainian president, it is reported that what will be released are not verbatim transcripts but ones reconstructed from notes by the people who listen in to such calls. Those are two very different things. Also it appears that there was more than one call.

Meanwhile the whistleblower has said through his lawyer that he wants to give testimony before Congress. You can be sure that Trump and his legal team will try to block him on the grounds of national security, that blanket that is used to hide anything that might be embarrassing or criminal by the government.

Comments

  1. Pierce R. Butler says

    I never did understand the argument against impeachment that said that there was no point since the Republican controlled senate would never convict Trump.

    Look at it this way: The Republican Party does whatever it can to pander to the Republican base.

    The Democratic Party, likewise, does whatever it can to pander to the Republican base.

  2. Allison says

    Okay, let’s say Trump is actually impeached and convicted and removed from office.

    Now Mike Pence is president.

    Do you honestly think the policies Michael Pence will push through Congress or enact by fiat will be any better than what the Trump administration is doing? He’s on record as a misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, and racist. And he’s far less likely to shoot himself in the foot.

    I fear for my life if Pence becomes president.

  3. says

    You see, this all worked out according to Pelosi’s grand plan. By making it look as if they were not considering impeaching Trump, she emboldened him to do even more egregious things so that she could impeach him after all!

    (Yes, I’m being facetious.)

    Win or lose in the Senate, the Dems ought to be able (assuming competency) to throw this in the faces of the Republicans throughout the campaign.

  4. deepak shetty says

    @Allison
    Pence is likely worse But President Pence for 1 year may be better than President Trump for 4 more

  5. komarov says

    Win or lose in the Senate, the Dems ought to be able (assuming competency) to throw this in the faces of the Republicans throughout the campaign.

    Yes, that’s what this is going to be, if anything, isn’t it? A talking point (a very American expression I’d translate as meaningless jabber to be repeated ad nauseam and then forgotten when it has served it prupsose) The list of buzzwords to be thrown at us during the US election campaign has grown by one, and that’s all that’ll come of this. So far my prediction, anyway. If he’s true to form, Trump may even use any sort of impeachment procedure as a distraction for even worse crap he has yet to pull.

    Incidentally, does it seem suspicious to anyone that the thing to finally get the impeachment going, after everyone has been talking about it for years, is a political attack on a rival politician? After everything else up to, including and possibly beyond children in kennels apparently wasn’t sufficient to take action? Actually it doesn’t seem odd at all, but maybe that’s just my inflamed cynicism gland acting up.

  6. Mano Singham says

    komarov,

    War crimes, illegal spying and other abuses of power against ordinary US citizens, etc., although extremely serious offenses, never seem to be sufficient to trigger impeachment because those things have bipartisan support. It is only when the ruling classes attack each other with dirty tricks that impeachment is put on the table. Remember the impeachment movement against Nixon was because he bugged the Democratic party headquarters, not for his bombing of Vietnam and his ‘secret’ bombing of Cambodia.

  7. GerrardOfTitanServer says

    To Allison
    I hear you. To simply explain my perspective, at least I don’t have to worry as much about global nuclear war with Michael Pence as president. There’s also added benefit of enforcing “rule of law” culture and showing that the president is not above the law.

  8. says

    Actual conspiracy I saw on Twitter: The Dems impeach both the Hamberdler and VP Grimace, Pelosi becomes president and names Hillary Clinton as her VP, then Pelosi resigns and Clinton becomes president.

    Which seems like an awful lot of work for someone to be president for about a year.

  9. Holms says

    Allison
    Do you honestly think the policies Michael Pence will push through Congress or enact by fiat will be any better than what the Trump administration is doing? He’s on record as a misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, and racist. And he’s far less likely to shoot himself in the foot.

    No, but then again your concern is a recipe for disaster. If you refrain from removing a monster from office just because his second is also a monster, then you guarantee their immunity. They will never stop electing monsters so long as monsters are invincible, which they are if we follow your reasoning.

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