The Democratic decision to launch an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump pushed a strained nation to a new political brink, activating for the fourth time in history the US constitution’s most critical fail-safe with no certainty about where it will take the country.
After years of circling each other in an increasingly bitter political clash, Trump and his Democratic opponents will now find themselves locked in a legal process designed to remove from power elected leaders who have betrayed the public trust. Both sides committed to emerge victorious from the fight.
“I can’t tell you what will come from this. I don’t think anybody can,” said Dan Sena, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018. “But it is definitely going to be an X-factor going into the 2020 election.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent much of the year beating back impeachment calls in her party, warning a partisan process would be, in her words, “so divisive” and “not worth it”. As she told her colleagues in 2018, on the way to winning back control of the House, “You can’t get in a tinkle contest with a skunk”.
But now she has announced everything had changed. Recent revelations about Trump’s efforts to pressure the president of Ukraine to help find dirt that would aid his own re-election were a “betrayal of his office”. She was ready to take the leap.
“Use any metaphor you want: Crossing the Rubicon, alea iacta est, a new territory, a new day has dawned,” she said, evoking the Latin for “the die is cast”, reportedly uttered by Julius Caesar.
Pelosi’s dramatic declaration may go down in history as an understatement.
Presidential impeachment is enshrined in clear terms in the founding documents, but its use in practice has less in common with a typical legal proceeding than with an atomic weapon, potentially setting off chain reactions which can dominate the nation’s attention for weeks, ripple through the political system for years and shift electoral outcomes in unexpected ways.
That calculus is further complicated by the extraordinary nature of Trump, a rule-bending, norm-breaking spectacle of a leader, who has thrived by escalating conflicts even when the facts are not on his side. His 2020 re-election campaign, premised on the notion that liberal elites, Democrats and the media are conspiring against the American people, is now certain to prompt a new rallying cry.
“Presidential harassment!” he tweeted concisely this week. Within hours, his campaign put out a call for donors to give to his “impeachment defence team”.
Although impeachment proceedings reflect America’s democratic system working as designed, to determine if a president accused of crimes should be removed from office, Trump and his allies are expected to use every tool at their disposal to test the foundations of that system, just as they have done since his earliest days in office.
So far, he has beaten back other forms of congressional oversight, much to the consternation of House Democrats and other Trump critics who have so far been unable to exercise the sort of power they thought they had to keep a president in check.
As in past cases, Democrats have little hope of Trump’s removal from office by the Senate if they impeach him in the House. Republicans control the upper chamber, which would have to convict him by a two-thirds margin.
Since the disclosures about Ukraine, only a single Republican, Mitt Romney , has gone so far as to call the president’s actions potentially “troubling in the extreme”.
The remaining senators are no doubt responding to Trump’s powerful sway with their own constituents.
A ‘Washington Post’-ABC News poll in July found 59pc of Americans opposed starting impeachment proceedings, while 37pc supported starting them.
Democratic consultants and pollsters focused on House and Senate races have been warning for months a pursuit of impeachment following the Mueller inquiry could amount to a self-inflicted wound, by allowing Republicans to claim Democrats are partisans not focused on voters’ concerns.
But advisers also said there was reason to believe polling would shift in the coming months, as Democratic voters united behind their party and details of Trump’s conversations with Ukraine were made public.
Trump has admitted to discussing his possible Democratic opponent, former vice-president Joe Biden, in a July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Democrats intend to argue that the fact pattern behind Trump’s contact with Ukraine is far more direct, damning and easily digestible than complex stories of potential obstruction of justice contained in the Mueller report.
“This is a more supportable narrative about his conduct,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster. “It’s more clear. “Trump has already admitted to most of the egregious behaviour. He is out of the business of claiming nothing happened. And there is no mystery about his personal involvement, because he was the guy at the other end of the line.”
© Washington Post
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Michael Scherer: 'President has beaten Congress before and will use every tool available to him to do it again'
Michael Scherer: 'President has beaten Congress before and will use every tool available to him to do it again'
The Democratic decision to launch an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump pushed a strained nation to a new political brink, activating for the fourth time in history the US constitution’s most critical fail-safe with no certainty about where it will take the country.
After years of circling each other in an increasingly bitter political clash, Trump and his Democratic opponents will now find themselves locked in a legal process designed to remove from power elected leaders who have betrayed the public trust. Both sides committed to emerge victorious from the fight.
“I can’t tell you what will come from this. I don’t think anybody can,” said Dan Sena, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018. “But it is definitely going to be an X-factor going into the 2020 election.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent much of the year beating back impeachment calls in her party, warning a partisan process would be, in her words, “so divisive” and “not worth it”. As she told her colleagues in 2018, on the way to winning back control of the House, “You can’t get in a tinkle contest with a skunk”.
But now she has announced everything had changed. Recent revelations about Trump’s efforts to pressure the president of Ukraine to help find dirt that would aid his own re-election were a “betrayal of his office”. She was ready to take the leap.
“Use any metaphor you want: Crossing the Rubicon, alea iacta est, a new territory, a new day has dawned,” she said, evoking the Latin for “the die is cast”, reportedly uttered by Julius Caesar.
Pelosi’s dramatic declaration may go down in history as an understatement.
Presidential impeachment is enshrined in clear terms in the founding documents, but its use in practice has less in common with a typical legal proceeding than with an atomic weapon, potentially setting off chain reactions which can dominate the nation’s attention for weeks, ripple through the political system for years and shift electoral outcomes in unexpected ways.
That calculus is further complicated by the extraordinary nature of Trump, a rule-bending, norm-breaking spectacle of a leader, who has thrived by escalating conflicts even when the facts are not on his side. His 2020 re-election campaign, premised on the notion that liberal elites, Democrats and the media are conspiring against the American people, is now certain to prompt a new rallying cry.
“Presidential harassment!” he tweeted concisely this week. Within hours, his campaign put out a call for donors to give to his “impeachment defence team”.
Although impeachment proceedings reflect America’s democratic system working as designed, to determine if a president accused of crimes should be removed from office, Trump and his allies are expected to use every tool at their disposal to test the foundations of that system, just as they have done since his earliest days in office.
So far, he has beaten back other forms of congressional oversight, much to the consternation of House Democrats and other Trump critics who have so far been unable to exercise the sort of power they thought they had to keep a president in check.
As in past cases, Democrats have little hope of Trump’s removal from office by the Senate if they impeach him in the House. Republicans control the upper chamber, which would have to convict him by a two-thirds margin.
Since the disclosures about Ukraine, only a single Republican, Mitt Romney , has gone so far as to call the president’s actions potentially “troubling in the extreme”.
The remaining senators are no doubt responding to Trump’s powerful sway with their own constituents.
A ‘Washington Post’-ABC News poll in July found 59pc of Americans opposed starting impeachment proceedings, while 37pc supported starting them.
Democratic consultants and pollsters focused on House and Senate races have been warning for months a pursuit of impeachment following the Mueller inquiry could amount to a self-inflicted wound, by allowing Republicans to claim Democrats are partisans not focused on voters’ concerns.
But advisers also said there was reason to believe polling would shift in the coming months, as Democratic voters united behind their party and details of Trump’s conversations with Ukraine were made public.
Trump has admitted to discussing his possible Democratic opponent, former vice-president Joe Biden, in a July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Democrats intend to argue that the fact pattern behind Trump’s contact with Ukraine is far more direct, damning and easily digestible than complex stories of potential obstruction of justice contained in the Mueller report.
“This is a more supportable narrative about his conduct,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster. “It’s more clear. “Trump has already admitted to most of the egregious behaviour. He is out of the business of claiming nothing happened. And there is no mystery about his personal involvement, because he was the guy at the other end of the line.”
© Washington Post
Source: Read Full Article