The editors of the Wall Street Journal react to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement yesterday that she was endorsing an official inquiry into whether to impeach President Trump:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday endorsed an official inquiry to impeach President Trump, and there is joy across Resistance America—at least for now. The decision guarantees that this will go down as the Impeachment Congress, with little to show beyond investigations into the Trump campaign and now the Trump Presidency.
In one sense this moment was probably inevitable. Most Democrats and most of the media have never accepted Mr. Trump as a legitimate President. They can’t believe 63 million Americans voted for him over their nominee, Hillary Clinton, so they have looked every day since Election Night in 2016 for some reason to expel him from office.
They spent two years spinning a tale of Russian collusion that proved to be false. Then they hyped obstruction of justice because Mr. Trump fired James Comey as FBI director, but the public wasn’t persuaded. The payment to Stormy Daniels made a cameo, but that was too close to Democrats’ defense of Bill Clinton for “lying about sex†to fly.
Mrs. Pelosi has now found a rationale in a whistleblower’s accusation about Mr. Trump’s July 25 phone call to Ukraine’s President. Mr. Trump admits that he warned Volodymyr Zelensky about corruption, including Joe Biden ’s interventions in Ukraine against a prosecutor who was investigating a company with ties to Mr. Biden ’s son, Hunter. Mr. Trump also admits that he delayed U.S. aid to Ukraine in early July prior to the phone call out of concern for corruption and allied burden sharing.
Mrs. Pelosi has concluded that all of this is worth ginning up the impeachment machinery that has been exercised against Presidents only three times in U.S. history. “The actions taken to date by the President have seriously violated the Constitution,†she said after a meeting of House Democrats. “The actions of the Trump Presidency revealed dishonorable facts of the President’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.â€
and conclude:
Mrs. Pelosi has often said that impeachment won’t be credible with the public if it isn’t bipartisan. Yet so far it is entirely partisan. Mr. Biden proved that point by calling Tuesday for Mr. Trump’s impeachment if he resists the demands of Congress. The House can impeach on a partisan vote and define “high Crimes and Misdemeanors†as it wishes. But impeachment is ultimately political, and the voters will decide in 2020 if impeachment is what they voted for in 2018.
while in his column William Galston, a Democrat, urges the House Democrats to step back from impeachment:
Because the courts offer no prospect of remedy, many representatives believe that impeachment is the only recourse, and also their duty. Speaker Pelosi’s announcement is the first step down this road.
Although I respect their motives, I disagree: Impeachment is a constitutional option, not a constitutional obligation. It is, in the broadest sense, a political act, and therefore is subject to political tests of feasibility and efficacy.
Fortunately for them and for the country, there is a third choice, provided by law: a resolution formally censuring the president. There is precedent. In 1834 the Senate censured President Andrew Jackson for withholding documents related to his defunding the Bank of the United States, one of the most hotly disputed decisions of his presidency.
The House should use the impeachment inquiry to develop the factual basis for a comprehensive bill of particulars against President Trump—an enumeration of his most egregious affronts to the spirit of the laws and the Constitution, and to the honor and dignity of the office he holds. They should pass this bill as a formal motion of censure.
I have long held that Speaker Pelosi has been engaging in brinksmanship, keeping impeachment on the table to pacify her caucus, elements of which have supported impeachment since November of 2016, while believing that impeachment could be damaging electorally to Democrats.
There are risks for both sides. The inquiry could drive Trump’s polling numbers which have been weak throughout his presidency even further down. The House Democrats could impeach him. A few Republicans could even join them.
But there are risks for Democrats as well. Depending on the actual contents of the conversation which, according to public accounts, are likely to be revealed soon, it could reveal Trump as seditious as Democrats have been claiming since November 2016 or it could expose the Democrats as partisan fools. If they argue that the letter of the law doesn’t matter, not only could it sink Joe Biden’s campaign but it could further reveal Democrats as having purely partisan motives. Does anyone seriously contend that the “Clinton Family Foundation” was anything other than a weakly disguised exercise in influence-peddling, carefully stopping just short of a quid pro quo? Further, treating the revealing of presidential conversations with foreign heads of state as whistle-blowing could potentially open the floodgates for revelations from past, present, and future presidencies. The temptation to overreach is enormous.
As I have pointed out repeatedly in the past, I did not vote for Trump, did not want him to be elected, and do not believe he deserves re-election. I wish that the Democrats would rally behind a candidate I could joyfully support. The next few weeks or months, heavens forfend, will be telling.
This article from the intercept neatly packages a lot of my own thoughts (through I thought impeachment would come later)
https://theintercept.com/2019/09/24/impeachment-inquiry-donald-trump-nancy-pelosi/
The key quote is
“That grassroots anger was translating into primary challenges, he noted, and needlessly furious constituents. Rep. Cheri Bustos, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and a champion of doing nothing when it came to Trump, had recently counted as many as 111 primaries, by far more than a typical cycle. The members without official primary challenges were by no means safe, either, as they might soon draw a challenge unless the trajectory of the politics changed.â€
Question – if the motivation for impeachment is to survive Congressional primaries – how does it affect the schedule. My guess the preferred schedule is to impeach before said primaries but so close to the primary that (a) it won’t be swept off the news and (b) the senate cannot acquit before the primary.
I will be honest; given the motivations for Democratic Congressman and Trump; if both were re-elected next year; there maybe 2nd and 3rd impeachment’s.
If I understand this correctly, Democrats are going to impeach President Trump based on a whistleblower report they have not seen filed by a whistleblower who did not hear the phone call or see the transcript.
After demanding the release of the transcript, President Trump agreed, and he agreed to release the entire conversation. This was followed by demands that he release the whistleblower report, and again, he agreed.
This almost seems like a set-up by President Trump.
The transcript released was a consolidation of notes compiled by people listening to the conversation. This 5-page transcript is now everywhere, and is far from damning. In fact it shows a mutual affection between 2 leaders, each stressing cooperation and wanting honesty in government. In the framework of weeding out corruption, both leaders said they were going to review Biden’s role in Ukraine, specifically dealing with his demands regarding firing a prosecutor who was looking into the corruption of the company Hunter Biden was being financially enriched. However, it is speculated Democrats will not be satisfied, much like they were with the outcome of the Mueller Report. Consequently, they will demand further scrutiny, stretching their inquiry indefinitely, leaving important legislation to rot in the congressional garden!
Democrats know full well what they are doing – and they chosen it because the alternatives are worse.
Reality is more depressing. Here is a fact; there are 195 seats where Republicans will never win. For the democratic incumbents in those seats, the only election that matters is the primary.
The article I linked shows the danger for Democratic incumbents who don’t impeach.
That’s 195 votes. Its too big a majority of the majority for the party leadership to thwart.
Not exactly. They’re going to impeach him because they’re mad as hell about the outcome of the 2016 election. Everything else is just handy pretext.
As I see it there are several possibilities depending on a) what actually happened and b) what Trump thinks. Either he actually engaged in abuse of power in that phone call or not; either he believes he did something wrong in that phone call or not. Four possibilities. He’s acting as though either he did nothing wrong or, at least, he believes he did nothing wrong. Look up the statute on abuse of power. It requires corrupt intent.
If the Democrats take the position that it doesn’t matter whether what he did was against the law or not, IMO they will self-immolate.
The return of the Hastert Rule. I think that’s right. Nancy Pelosi did a whip count and wants to keep her job.
Dems are going to impeach because they are mad as hell about the outcome of the 2016 election and everything else is pretext? Seems to me one would have to ignore a whole lot to come to that conclusion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/opinion/trump-ukraine-whistle-blower.html
” Everything else is just handy pretext.”
Why yes. Our new norm should be that any sitting president can call another country and threaten them if they dont provide damaging info on an opponent. (This assumes the whistleblower complaint is correct, but then we haven’t seen it as far as I can tell.)
Steve
Seems to me you have to ignore a whole lot of context to come to any other conclusion. There are calls for impeachment before Trump had been inaugurated.
I don’t support Trump; I didn’t vote for him; I won’t vote for him in 2020 if he’s running. But there has been an enormous amount of hysteria on all sides since 2016.
What makes you think they haven’t? I think that the reason we haven’t heard about it all along is loyalty. Trump commands practically zero loyalty.
The problem with the specific offense of “Pressuring foreign governments to investigate your political opponent” or “Conspiring with foreign governments to undermine your political opponent” is it sticks to both sides.
The Clinton campaign worked with the Ukraine government to undermine Trump in 2016.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446
Democratic senators pressured the Ukrainian government to reverse freezing investigations that would help Mueller investigate Trump.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/04/politics/robert-mueller-ukraine/index.html
I think the adage, “politics stops at the waters edge” is a good one. But what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If Democratic Senators and Congressman are willing to expel their own colleagues for “pressuring another government to investigate their political opponents”; then people not motivated by Democratic Party primary politics will take it seriously.
@steve
(This assumes the whistleblower complaint is correct, but then we haven’t seen it as far as I can tell.)
Let’s see if I have this straight. The actual transcript is not enough. We need to see the complaint of the whistleblower who filed a complaint with no actual knowledge of what he/she was complaining about.
Everytime I think it cannot get any better, you all surprise me. Honestly, you all are so far into batshit crazyland that there is no lie you all will not believe.
I read the transcript, and the only surprise was how benign in content it was, and how affable the two leaders were in discussing working together in the future. While the release of this conversation was probably unavoidable because of all the rancor and distrust between parties, I think it sets a regrettable precedent for securing privacy in future phone calls between world leaders. When you eliminate the ability to speak freely and frankly, a valuable tool rendering clarity between countries has been foolishly lost.
Also, Steve, there were no threats made in that transcript. Now if you want to cite threats look to the Durbin/Menendez/Leahy letter sent in May 2018 to Ukraine, requesting info to support the Mueller Report, indicating US support was at risk.
“Our new norm should be that any sitting president can call another country and threaten them if they dont provide damaging info on an opponent.â€
Of course not. What Trump should have done is have Giuliani hire an opposition research firm to hire a former intel officer of one of our allies to compile unsubstantiated allegations into a dossier about the opponent and shop it out to the press. If that failed then use the dossier to get the FISA court to sign off on warrants to eavesdrop on the opponent’s campaign.
That’s the existing norm, apparently.
“What makes you think they haven’t?”
Really? Then lets conjecture away. Every president has kidnapped children from foreign countries and had them tortured until that govt cooperated. How do we know they didnt?
“Let’s see if I have this straight. The actual transcript is not enough. We need to see the complaint of the whistleblower who filed a complaint with no actual knowledge of what he/she was complaining about.”
Unlike you, I haven’t read the whistleblower complaint so I dont know if there was actual knowledge or not. Mind showing me your copy? Your total trust in Trump and his White House is touching, but naive. Why dont you want us to see the actual complaint? We already know he asked for a quid pro quo, at least once.
“ZELENSKY: Yes indeed. I especially want to thank you for your support in the area of defense. We are ready to buy more weapons from you.
TRUMP: I would like you to do us a favor though. Please look into the DNC server hack. Our attorney general will be calling you about that.
ZELENSKY: Sure, sure, anything for you. I’m appointing a new ambassador so we can continue our strategic partnership.
TRUMP: That’s great. I’d also like you to investigate Joe Biden’s son. Rudy Giuliani and our attorney general will be calling you about that.â€
Steve
“Of course not. What Trump should have done is have Giuliani hire an opposition research firm to hire a former intel officer of one of our allies to compile unsubstantiated allegations into a dossier about the opponent and shop it out to the press. If that failed then use the dossier to get the FISA court to sign off on warrants to eavesdrop on the opponent’s campaign.
That’s the existing norm, apparently.”
You do realize I am not a Clinton fan. If what they did is illegal, and you ado have some facts wrong here, but go ahead investigate. Put her in jail if it was illegal. I dont feel the need to protect her if she broke the law. This is much different than you guys who want to rationalize and defend blatantly bad behavior since Trump is your guy.
Steve
@CStanley
Glad to see you back. I was about to send out a search party. I was worried about @jan, but she surfaced. We even heard from @Icepick.
Now, there is one person I have not heard from in a while, and she knows who she is. If you are out there, I have not forgotten you.
Nancy Sinatra – These Boots Are Made for Walkin’
Bad behavior illegal behavior.
The first is impeachable, the second prosecutable.
I saw neither in the transcript, but plenty of the former in the reaction to the whistleblower’s accusation. They’re not crying wolf, they’re shrieking herds of tyrannosaurs. How are normal people supposed to support the demands of supposedly level-headed politicians and pundits whose TDS had caused them not to just run off the rails but plunge down the mountainside. It’s their fault, for letting a squad of wet-behind-the-ears kids and their social media mob dictate their actions.
Tasty,
Good to hear that Icepick is still around. I too was glad to see CStanley’s post as she has always seemed like a sensible, fair-minded poster, whether or not I agree with her all the time.
I find Tars comments in his last post very similar to mine. I really don’t understand democrats anymore. They seem off their meds, or something creating hallucinations was put in their collective water bottles. Their behavior is simply unrecognizable from what I would expect from even a mediocre government official. In fact, they are making Trump look centered and presidential these days!
Finally, Clinton is rumored to be going on another “listening tour,” Steve. So, maybe you can take another look at her! …just kidding.
Thanks TB (and Jan.)
Real life has been busy so I still read here and elsewhere a good bit but mostly try to restrain from commenting as it becomes a time sink.
@jan
Everytime I start wonder where you are, you check-in. You were the first person to connect with me on a personal level, and I have a long memory.
Tasty, I feel the same about you, in that your responses have been personal, almost neighborly!
I also agree with CStanley how time consuming posting can be, which is why I loften do flurries of comments and then retreat to only reading blogs and posting exchanges.