Impeachment Time Is Coming

Pelosi thinks it's "bad politics" to impeach Trump. (It's no less her duty than it was Paul Ryan's-- maybe more so.) She may be wrong... and her hand may be forced. A new poll, released this morning by the Associated Press, confirms that most Americans believe that Trump has obstructed the investigation by Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election that put Trump into the White House. And a smaller majority think that if the case is proven that Trump worked with the Russians on this, he should be impeached and removed from office.

It's become painfully obvious that the Republican-controlled Senate won't vote to remove Trump regardless of what crimes he's committed (and what danger he puts the country in)-- including high treason. But if Pelosi is making her calculations based on what is good and bad politics, impeaching Trump, only to see the Republicans vote not to remove him, might be great 2020 Senate election politics. This could tip the scales in Republican-held seats in Kentucky (McConnell), Arizona (McSally), Colorado (Gardner), North Carolina (Tillis), Iowa (Ernst), Kansas (Roberts, if he runs again), Maine (Collins) and maybe even in Texas (Cornyn). 

A majority of Americans-- 58 percent-- think the president has tried to impede the Russia investigation, while 4 in 10 say he has not. An overwhelming share of Democrats, 90 percent, say the president has sought to obstruct the probe, compared with 22 percent of Republicans.

The survey also shows that if Mueller’s investigation finds that Trump did not personally have inappropriate contacts with the Kremlin but nonetheless tried to obstruct the FBI’s work, 51 percent of Americans think Congress should take steps to remove him from office, while 46 percent think it should not.

The special counsel’s obstruction investigation has shadowed the president for a year and a half, unfolding alongside his inquiry into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to sway the election and the separate campaign finance probe in New York. The last month has produced bombshell developments in the investigation, including Cohen’s sentencing, allegations that Trump’s former campaign chairman lied to prosecutors and a judge’s unexpected upbraiding of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

...About 8 in 10 Democrats and 2 in 10 Republicans think Trump should be removed from office if he committed obstruction. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats and only about 1 in 10 Republicans think Congress should take steps to impeach him if he directed illegal payments.

Overall, 45 percent said Congress should take steps to remove him from office if he orchestrated the hush money payments. Slightly more, 53 percent, said Congress should not take steps to remove Trump for that.

About 4 in 10 think he broke the law when it comes to directing Cohen’s payments, and about as many say the same of his ties to Russia. About 2 in 10 think Trump has done nothing wrong, with the remainder saying his actions were unethical, but not illegal.

About 7 in 10 Democrats believe Trump has done something illegal involving Russia. Among Republicans, 55 percent say Trump has done nothing wrong when it comes to Russia, while 35 percent think he has done something unethical but not illegal.

...The poll finds rising confidence among Democrats of the fairness and impartiality of Mueller’s investigation. Overall, about a third of Americans say they’re extremely or very confident that the inquiry is fair and impartial; another quarter say they are moderately confident. Roughly 4 in 10 say they’re not confident.

Democrats are more likely to express confidence today compared with a year ago, 51 percent to 38 percent. Just 14 percent of Republicans say they are confident, which is unchanged from last year.

Members of Congress who will have to sit in judgment of Trump, probably shouldn't be making too many public statements about impeachment at this point. I reached out to some former members and so candidates we supported who ran and didn't wind up winning. Alan Grayson has been loud and clear about his support to move forward on impeaching Trump. This morning he reiterated that "Trump said on national TV that he fired Comey because of 'that Russia thing.' He exchanged information with Manafort and dangled a pardon after Manafort signed a plea agreement. That’s obstruction of justice. Trump called on Russia to hack Democratic e-mails, and Russia did so. Russia also ran a social media campaign to suppress votes for Clinton. Trump paid back Russia by removing Ukrainian support from the GOP platform, appointing a National Security Advisory on Russia’s payroll known as 'Misha' [Flynn], giving state secrets to the Russian Ambassador in the Oval Office, refusing to implement sanctions on Russia, and now withdrawing US troops from Russian ally Syria.  That’s collusion and treason. Trump should be impeached and removed from office because he has committed impeachable offenses, in broad daylight. Q.E.D."

Dan Cannon, who ran for an Indiana congressional seat this year, sees it much differently. "It's incredible that nearly half of Americans would not support impeachment at this point, given everything we know about our incompetent, narcissistic, crime-boss president. These poll responses, especially from Democrats, say a lot about how easy it is to manipulate the public into accepting a new normal for ethical behavior and the rule of law in general, and how quickly that manipulation can be accomplished. Still, as much as I would enjoy seeing Trump impeached, imprisoned, and humiliated, I think a better outcome would be to see him decisively defeated at the ballot box next year. Without the votes in the Senate, impeachment seems an exercise in futility anyway (Trump doesn't have the dignity even of a Richard Nixon type-- he won't resign). The real question is whether American democracy can handle another two years of Trumpism."

Los Angeles progressive activist and former congressional candidate Marcy Winograd told me she's "looking forward to a Democrat-controlled House conducting vigorous hearings and investigations into multiple Trump abuses of power, most importantly the use of corporate facilitators to pose as regulators, allowing polluters to plunder our land, air and water. My concern about impeachment is that I would not want to see the Vice President, a fundamentalist, ascend to the presidency to execute a dystopian vision. If we could impeach both Trump and Pence, then so be it. As for Trump obstructing justice by interfering with the Russia probe, I think the answer to that is clear: He obstructed justice when he fired the former FBI director James Comey and when tampered with witnesses on twitter, urging them, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone, not to cooperate with the Department of Justice."

Blue America supported Norman Solomon when he ran for Congress in northern California. We'd be way better off now if he had won. "The House," he told me today, "should move toward impeachment, though at best there'll be nothing immediate about it. First step is an impeachment investigation via committee."

Mueller's report or anything coming through the courts shouldn't impede or delay the House from going ahead with impeachment proceedings. Impeachment is a legislative branch function-- it's not a judicial function-- and frankly it has a lot more to do with politics and media than legalisms.

Tactical discourse can go on indefinitely, and conventional wisdom has been wrong so often in recent years that you gotta wonder why the pundits are taken so seriously at this point. From the outset of his presidency, Trump has been violating the foreign and domestic emoluments of the Constitution of the United States-- which is supposed to be 'the supreme law of the land.'

Impeachment would anger most Republicans. No telling what would do for independents. The 'backfire' argument cites what happened after Clinton was impeached, but skips over what happened after Nixon was forced from office on the verge of impeachment-- the Republicans lost lots of congressional seats and the White House.

No one is above the law-- what a concept!

John Laesch is another great candidate Blue America strongly supported (against Denny Hastert). I asked him what he thinks about all this impeachment discussion. He said that "A Democratic majority was elected by the American people to serve in the House of Representatives during the 2018 election. When those newly elected members of Congress take office we will probably see more congressional investigations on top of the ongoing Mueller investigation into Donald Trump’s Russian dealings. At this point, I think the American people want the United States Congress to do more to make sure that nobody, not even the President of the United States, is above the law. But as the Democratic majority pursues their 'death by a thousand cuts' strategy to thwart the rest of Trump’s chaotic presidency, they should be paying attention to polls like this one. According to a Dec. 2018 poll, 51% of Americans think that Trump should be impeached if he obstructed the Mueller investigation and 45% think that he should be impeached if he initiated hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. According to a Reuters  poll on Aug. 2018, 70% of Americans now support Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare. It doesn’t seem like rocket science and the math doesn’t lie. The American people are more willing and ready to support fundamental healthcare change than they are ready to support impeachment. A stronger strategy for Democrats would be to advance a bold, populist agenda that works for working Americans. This strategy has the added benefit of undermining Trump's populist rhetoric that helped get him elected."

Doug Applegate had the least honey-coated and more dire warning. A former Marine colonel, who ran for Congress in the Orange County/San Diego district and basically ran Darrell Issa out of office, he reminded us just moments ago that "Since 2016, I have stated publicly that Donald Trump was unfit to command. Donald Trump's actions disclosed to date far exceed the wrongful conduct of Nixon. Should we fail to impeach a president attempting to slay our Republic by suicide, the parties responsible (both political and individuals) will forever lose the moral authority to stop the next Donald Trump. Worst yet those political parties and individuals will have enabled the next despot to occupy the Oval Office. Chuck and Nancy must act now or step aside."