Impeaching Señor Trumpanzee-- Where Are The Missing Votes Hiding?

UPDATE: There are now 211 members of Congress in favor of opening an official impeachment inquiry-- meaning all they need is 7 more, something they will have before the end of the day.

On Tuesday morning-- apparently with an OK from Pelosi-- John Lewis, who is considered by many the "conscience of Congress," spoke on the House floor, reversing his public impeachment position. "We cannot delay. We must not wait. Now is the time to act. I have been patient while we tried every other path and used every other tool. We will never find the truth unless we use the power given to the House of Representatives and the House alone." This gives immediate cover to a least a dozen wavering members. It is also, part of Pelosi's staging strategy.

Even Status Quo Joe, locked in a deadly battle about who's family is more corrupt, noticed that maybe it was time to call for Trump's impeachment if he doesn't fully cooperate with all ongoing congressional investigations and subpoenas.

Last night, in announcing she would have the House begin a formal impeachment inquiry, Pelosi said that "The actions of the Trump presidency revealed the dishonorable fact of the president's betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections. Therefore, today, I am announcing the House of Representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. I am directing our six committees to proceed with their investigations under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry."

As best I can figure out, there are 159 members of Congress who have now publicly called for a formal impeachment inquiry, the most recent being Michigan New Dem Haley Stevens. Not one Republican has taken the step, although Independent-- former Republican-- Justin Amash has. So that means 158 Democrats out of 235 are on board for impeaching Trump. That leaves 77 Democrats still not there yet. These are the Democrats who are either against it or still, at this late date, making up their minds-- and, as far as I can tell, some who are about to make a big splash in the news tomorrow (watch for my book for the details). The percentage next to each name is Trump's 2016 score and the bolded scores show where Trump won the district:

• Colin Allred (New Dem-TX)- 46.6%
• Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA)- 48.5%
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)- 40.9%
• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)- 43.3
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 54.8%
• Cheri Bustos (New Dem-IL)- 47.4%
• Matt Cartwright (D-PA)- 53.3%
• Ed Case (Blue Dog-HI)- 30.5%
• Kathy Castor (D-FL)- 39.0%
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC)- 30.3%
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)- 38.2%
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- 36.4%
• Joe Courtney (D-CT)- 45.8%
• T.J. Cox (New Dem-CA)- 39.7%
• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)- 46.4%
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 38.5%
• Elijah Cummings (D-MD)- 20.2%
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)- 53.5%
• Sharice Davids (New Dem-KS)- 46.0%
• Susan Davis (New Dem-CA)- 29.6%
• Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)- 40.4%
• Antonio Delgado (D-NY)- 50.8%
• Lizzie Fletcher (New Dem-TX)- 47.1%
• Abby Finkenauer (D-IA)- 48.7%
• Lois Frankel (D-FL)- 39.1%
• Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)- 29.6%
• Jared Golden (D-ME)- 51.4%
• Vicente González (Blue Dog-TX)- 40.0%
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 48.8%
• Josh Harder (D-CA)- 45.5%
• Jahana Hayes (D-CT)- 45.8%
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- 53.2%
• Steven Horsford (New Dem-NV)- 44.6%
• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)- 32.1%
• Andy Kim (D-NJ)- 51.4%
• Ron Kind (New Dem-WI)- 49.3%
• Conor Lamb (D-PA)- 49.4%
• John Larson (D-CT)- 36.3%
• Al Lawson (New Dem-FL)- 35.9%
• Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)- 47.5%
• Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)- 39.9%
• Dave Loebsack (D-IA)- 49.1%
• Stephen Lynch- (New Dem-MA)- 34.4%
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)- 39.1%
• Donald McEachin (New Dem-VA)- 37.1%
• Jerry McNerney (D-CA)- 38.0%
• Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY)- 12.7%
• Joseph Morelle (D-NY)- 39.1%
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)- 44.1%
• Richard Neal (D-MA)- 36.5%
• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)- 47.7%
• Jimmy Panetta (New Dem-CA)- 23.2%
• Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)- 8.7%
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- 61.8%
• Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)- 53.6%
• Raul Ruiz (New Dem-CA)- 43.4%
• Linda Sanchez (D-CA)- 27.4%
• Adam Schiff (New Dem-CA)- 22.3%
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)- 44.1%
• Bobby Scott (D-VA)- 31.9%
• David Scott (Blue Dog-GA)- 26.6%
• Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)- 28.6%
• Donna Shalala (D-FL)- 38.9%
• Albio Sires (New Dem-NJ)- 21.5%
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)- 50.1%
• Darren Soto (New Dem-FL)- 41.9%
• Tom Suozzi (New Dem-NY)- 45.5%
• Mike Thompson (Blue Dog-CA)- 24.3%
• Jeff Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ)- 50.6%
• Marc Veasey (New Dem-TX)- 23.7%
• Peter Visclosky (D-IN)- 41.5%
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL)- 35.8%
• Susan Wild (New Dem-PA)- 47.6%
• Frederica Wilson (D-FL)- 15.4%

Notice that Tom Suozzi's and Josh Harder's names are crossed off the list-- as many, many others will be in the next 2 days-- because they just changed their positions. I was talking with members all day yesterday who have confirmed that there's quite a bit of choreography going on here. I knew something was cooking yesterday when Long Island Democrat Tom Suozzi posted this on his Facebook page at 3am (PT):

As many of you know I have been reluctant to support impeachment of the President.

My reluctance was based upon my belief that: impeachment will further divide an already divided country; the President will use impeachment proceedings to try and solidify his base, arguing that his opponents are more interested in stopping him than solving the country’s problems; less than a majority of American voters support impeachment; the Senate, under Mitch McConnell and GOP control, are unlikely to support impeachment; the history of the Nixon and Clinton impeachment proceedings instruct cautious deliberation on such a weighty matter. Most importantly, for those of us who do not support the President, I argued that our attention should be focused on replacing him in the 2020 election.

However, the most recent admission by the President about his conversations with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where he urged him to investigate a political opponent and his family, is eerily reminiscent of reports that candidate Trump solicited foreign intervention in the 2016 election as documented in the Mueller report.

Furthermore, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community notified Congress of a “credible” and “urgent” whistleblower complaint related to the President’s conversations with the Ukrainian President. Now, despite federal law requiring the disclosure of a whistleblower complaint to Congress, the administration has blocked its release to Congress. This refusal is in outright contravention of the law and is again similar to the President’s and his administration’s refusal to comply with other mandates. I cannot ignore this flagrant disregard for the law.

Inaction would give this president (and future presidents) assurances that their misdeeds are immune from punishment. Inaction also would seriously diminish the role of the Congress as a co-equal branch of government determined to utilize its Article I powers.

I believe that it is my Constitutional duty and the duty of the United States Congress to move forward with impeachment inquiries.

I have not made this decision lightly. We must now build the case and establish sufficient evidence to garner a majority of the House to support impeachment and sufficient evidence that will require any rational member of the Senate to convict.

If my theory about Pelosi working this all out carefully is true-- and I have tons of confirmation that it is-- you will be seeing lots of notes like Suozzi's tonight and tomorrow. An old friend of this blog, Matt Cartwright, whose district went pretty substantially for Trump in 2016-- while reelecting him then and last year-- told me that "At some point, it becomes necessary to announce certain conduct by an American president as unacceptable. There have been credible allegations this week that the president abused the power of his office, on the international stage, for political gain. We need to get to the bottom of these serious allegations through comprehensive impeachment proceedings and document production. Whether such hearings result in actual impeachment of the president and or senior cabinet officials remains to be seen."

In his note, Harder wrote that "I wanted to reach out quickly about a rapidly changing situation in Washington. We've been closely following the whistleblower story about President Trump's phone call with Ukraine since last week. Based on recent developments, I've decided that if the allegations are true, it is time for the House to open impeachment proceedings. Here's what I just told the Modesto Bee for their story:

"Last week, we found out that the president himself may have put our national security at risk, invited another foreign government to interfere in our election, and used American tax dollars to further his own political agenda... Anyone willing to sacrifice the national security interests of the United States for their own benefit is unfit to be president.”

"While," Harder continued (with the DCCC talking points) I will be keeping my focus on issues that are most important to folks in my district-- affordable healthcare, good paying jobs, and access to water-- I will also be doing everything I can to make sure the truth comes out. Because it's what the American people deserve. So during a time like this, I feel it's my responsibility to add my voice. Our democracy demands it."

Trump disagrees that he should be impeached. Imagine that! On his way into the UN yesterday, he told a gaggle of reporters that he thinks "it’s ridiculous. It’s a witch hunt. I’m leading in the polls. They have no idea how they stop me the only way they can try is through impeachment. It’s nonsense, and when you see the call, when you see the readout of the call, which I assume you’ll see at some point, you’ll understand. That call was perfect." He's not leading in the polls; he's cratering with almost no path to victory unless he can get Biden the nomination by appearing to Democratic primary voters be so against him.

Yesterday Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Bernstein suggested that Pelosi is following a very carefully choreographed strategy towards impeachment, similar to the one Tip O'Neill used against Nixon. Even as Nixon was cruising to a reelection landslide after Watergate was committed, O'Neill "reckoned that so many bad things had been done by the Nixon men that they simply could not be kept secret indefinitely. Privately, he urged his surprised colleagues in the House leadership to get ready for impeachment. But O’Neill was patient. The House didn’t move after the cover-up collapsed in spring 1973, or after dramatic Senate hearings that summer revealed that Nixon was personally involved. Only after the Saturday Night Massacre in October, when Nixon ordered Justice Department officials to fire the special prosecutor overseeing the probe, did they start moving toward impeachment. And then for months, the judiciary committee slowly gathered evidence to make its case. This strategy eventually worked, as the story gradually came out and moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats began defecting from Nixon-- followed by the rest of the Republican Party in August 1974. Has Pelosi been emulating O’Neill? She’s been taking plenty of heat from pro-impeachment Democrats. She’s certainly been unwilling to get ahead of her caucus. Perhaps that’s because she thinks impeachment could be avoided. Or perhaps she’s been betting that Trump’s past and current lawlessness would keep supplying new evidence pushing ambivalent Democrats toward action-- and that a measured, patient process would be far stronger than a rushed one."

One more smart look at this-- why Vox's Zack Beauchamp is no longer sitting on the impeachment fence. Ukraine-Gate, he wrote, "changes everything. Impeaching Trump over Robert Mueller’s findings in the Russia investigation would have been an attempt to address past offenses; impeaching Trump over these calls would be an attempt to halt what sure looks like an ongoing attempt to hijack American foreign policy in service of the president’s reelection. Democrats have an obligation to try to stop this before it gets any further. There is now no question: It’s time to impeach Donald Trump.

The most compelling argument against impeachment, to my mind, was that it wouldn’t really accomplish anything.

There’s a virtual guarantee that impeachment will fail in the Republican-controlled Senate, which means there’s no real chance of actually removing Trump from office. Public opinion about the Russia scandal became more set along partisan lines as time went on, making it unlikely that drawing attention to it would galvanize public opinion against the Trump presidency in 2020. Why risk distracting Democrats from the issues on which Trump is genuinely unpopular, and jeopardizing the House Democratic majority, when the gains were so marginal?

This seems to be something like the reasoning that has guided Pelosi’s stolid opposition to impeachment. It’s not obviously correct, but it’s a serious argument-- and one that pro-impeachment Democrats and commentators dismissed too easily.

The new Ukraine scandal challenges this logic. There is now an obvious and immediate pragmatic upside to impeachment: stopping an ongoing abuse of presidential power that could undermine the integrity of the 2020 election.

State Senator Kai Kahele is running for the seat in Hawai'i's second district currently occupied by Tulsi Gabbard, who opposes impeachment. Kahele is more in sync with the Democratic Party-- and with voters in Hawai'i. Even before the whistleblower came forward about Trump's call with the president of Ukraine, he told me that "Some say impeachment will tear this country apart; I say that Donald Trump has already torn our country apart. He clearly has put his own self-interest and self-profiting above the interests of the American people. The recent revelations of taxpayer money being spent at his properties overseas and his desire to steer the G-7 summit to his resort in Florida, in addition to continued foreign government spending at the Trump DC Hotel, raise serious questions in regards to the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report outlined numerous instances of possible obstruction of justice. Now is the time for Congress to fulfill it’s constitutional duty to serve as a check and balance on this administration and conduct a full impeachment inquiry to see if there is enough evidence to remove the President from office. Only once Donald Trump is forever gone from the White House can we start to put our country back together again."

There are quite a few progressive candidates running for seats held by Trump-friendly Blue Dogs. In each case, the challengers are backing impeachment, while the incumbents are opposing it. In Arizona, Eva Putzova is running against "ex"-Repubican Tom O'Halleran, a Trump enabler. "My opponent," she told me last night, "chose to stick with the Republican Party while Bush's administration was involved in war crimes and torture, while the Party was taken over by Tea Party's racism, and through most of Obama's presidency, so it's no surprise he is not demanding Trump's impeachment despite numerous, frequent, and credible reports of Trump committing impeachable offenses. Voting with Trump nearly 40 percent of time, our representative in Arizona's first congressional district switched parties, but not his value system. If I were in Congress and president from any party behaved so irresponsibly and with such a disregard for the integrity of the Office of the President, I would not hesitate to call for impeachment proceedings. Our democracy is at stake."

It's the same thing up in Oregon where Milwaukie mayor Mark Gamba is facing off against Blue Dog Kurt Schrader. "We pride ourselves as Americans for having a society that lives by the rule of law rather than the tyranny that some other countries suffer under," said Gamba. "The question is: What is our country becoming when a President thumbs his nose at our laws and seemingly breaks them with impunity?  We are supposed to have a system of checks and balances so that we can never be ruled by a tyrant. I believe that it is the implicit duty of congress to protect our democracy by holding the other branches of government to the same standards we are all held to. If I were in Congress, I would be calling for an in depth and thorough Impeachment Inquiry. Kurt Schrader once again shows himself to be unwilling to step out of his comfort zone even when he knows it’s the right thing to do. He hasn’t done it in order to stop the climate crisis, he hasn’t done it to make sure every American can receive the medical care they need, he hasn’t done it when it came to supporting a living wage for every hard working American and now he won’t do it to protect our democracy from a tyrant."
 
Shan Chowdhury, the southeast Queens progressive challenger to corrupt New Dem Gregory Meeks made a good point: "We need less sheep and more shepherds. Many established democrats are changing their tune because of house leadership finally finding some courage to do their jobs. Activists and grassroots organizations have called for impeachment from the start of the president's term. Too many impeachable offenses were cast aside for political gains: lying to federal agents, ties to Russia, support for white nationalist violence, and spewing misogynistic and racist speech. So it’s about time! We need to stop playing politics, and starting doing the right things."