So... Impeachment Is On The Table-- But Can You Impeach A Whole Party?

Last night I asked Alan Grayson what he plans to do on this first day back in Congress. Best known as a tireless fighter for seniors, he didn't hesitate for a moment to say he plans to lay out the detailed plans for impeaching Trump. He has billboards and campaign signs all over Central Florida's 9th district (eastern Orlando, parts of Osceola, Orange and Polk counties) that say "Dump Trump-- Vote For Alan Grayson."

Trump's first tweets Wednesday morning barked about how he prefers cronies who refuse to cooperate with the government's investigations. Who's getting a pardon-- and who isn't? As you can hear in that NPR interview with Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, their strategy is to say "Cohen would never accept a pardon from a man that he considers to be both corrupt and a dangerous person in the oval office... [Cohen] has flatly authorized me to say under no circumstances would he accept a pardon from Mr. Trum who uses the pardon power in a way that no president in American history has ever used a pardon-- to relieve people of guilt who committed crimes, who are political cronies of his... Cohen is not interested in being dirtied by a pardon from such a man." So I guess no more taking a bullet for Trump.

As Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen ventured at Axios early this morning, "Impeachment proceedings against President Trump went from a theoretical danger to a vivid reality with yesterday's guilty plea by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen."

Cohen's guilty plea (with the president identified as "Individual-1") said Trump directed him to arrange hush money during the 2016 campaign to keep women from speaking out about affairs-- so Cohen was accusing Trump of pushing him to commit a crime. Look for Cohen’s statement to form the basis of a 2019 impeachment attempt if Democrats win control of the House in November.

The plea by Cohen, paired in a split screen with the near-simultaneous conviction of Paul Manafort, is what Trump’s aides feared all along:

• The Mueller investigation would lead these hardened investigators down rabbit holes that only Trump and his murky associates knew about.
• The crimes detailed yesterday have nothing to do with colluding with Putin to throw an election-- but are felonies, nonetheless.
• And, in a stunning twist, the president’s former attorney-- the guy who would yell obscenities at reporters and threaten them in the obsequious, unquestioningly loyal service of his boss-- is now the greatest known threat to the Trump presidency.

Trump friends say for the first time that they're worried about the president:

• A source close to Trump said: "I must admit a bit of concern about what he [Trump] would do fully backed into a corner."
• "By striking a deal with Mr. Cohen that includes prison time," the NY Times reports, "federal authorities were aware of the risk that the president might pardon him."
• Maggie Haberman tweeted: "Trump folks are worried about impeachment more than before. ... Does not mean it will happen, but this has moved to a different stage in their minds."

Presidential historian Jon Meacham brings in the orchestra, telling MSNBC:

• "This is rather like the third week of June, 1973, when [former White House counsel] John Dean went to the Senate and began his testimony" before the Watergate committee.
• "It's not unlike ... the second week in July in the same year, when [former Nixon White House aide] Alexander Butterfield revealed that there was a White House taping system."
• "It's the kind of moment that you can begin to see a genuine inflection point."

Earlier, Mike Allen had quoted a Republican strategist moaning about how the Republican Party looks like a criminal enterprise. "Corruption," wrote Allen, "instantly becomes a centerpiece issue in the midterm campaigns-- a huge new weight for Republicans in marginal races." Indictments for Chris Collins (R-NY) and Duncan Hunter (R-CA) are bad news as the midterms approach. The culture of corruption is back in the headlines-- literally, coast to coast. Last night Lanny Davis told Rachel Maddow that "Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel, and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows... He is now liberated to tell the truth-- everything about Donald Trump that he knows."

A new Morning Consult Poll shows that if the 2020 election were held today, Bernie would beat Trump 44% to 32%.