Holding back on sending two articles of impeachment against 73-year-old President Donald Trump, 80-year-old House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) finds herself boxed into a corner, knowing she faces a bad result in the U.S. Senate. Telling the press she’ll withhold articles of impeachment from the Senate until she gets a favorable road map for trial, Pelosi handed the baton to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) who promptly told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) he wanted to call more witnesses and get new documents. McConnell told Schumer no way. McConnell told Schumer it wasn’t his job to remake the Democrats’ “shoddy” impeachment case. Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) insisted their cased against Trump was “cut-and-dried.”
McConnell said Democrats have gotten “cold feet,” realizing they’d face failure in the Senate, where they lack the votes to remove Trump from office. Pelosi got the backing of 78-year-old liberal Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, someone she consults on for Constitutional issues. Emeritus Harvard Law Professor 81-year-old Alan Dershowitz said yesterday Tribe’s advice to Pelosi was unconstitutional. Constitution does not provide for the Congress to delay-or-withhold articles of impeachment from the Senate until they negotiate favorable conditions for trial. What irked Pelosi and House Democrats was McConnell saying he was not an “impartial,” because impeachment was inherently a political process. Pelosi finds herself where everyone knew it would wind up, no longer having any control over the outcome in the Senate, something the Founding Fathers intended.
Pelosi had good reason to drop the Mueller Report and find something new to go after Trump. Republicans want to know the identity of the so-called “whistleblower” that claimed Trump tried to pressure 40-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on 77-year-old former Vice President Joe Biden and his 50-year-old son Hunter. Trump emphatically denied pressuring Zelensky who told the press Sept. 25 and again Dec. 2 that Trump did not pressure him for information on the Bidens in exchange for military aid. House Democrats insist it happened, despite a forceful denial by the second party in Trump’s July 25 phone call. But the real reason Democrats abandoned the Mueller Report was the Dec. 9 report of Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Horowitz fingered the FBI for 17 instances of sloppy or outright illegal acts obtaining FISA court warrants on Trump’s campaign.
Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler know that their impeachment case on Trump is on shaky ground, now asking Schumer to demand more witnesses and documents. Schumer wouldn’t demand anything in the Senate if the House case were not so flimsy. Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Democrats had “buyers’ remorse” before handing impeachment articles to the Senate. Pelosi’s delay won’t get her any concessions from McConnell, who’s been accused of not being impartial. McConnell said that House Democrats were not impartial when they worked night-and-day to impeach Trump. Saying impeachment was inherently political, McConnell served notice that he doesn’t buy the Democrats’ case against Trump. Saying the House has “no case, and they don’t know what to do next,” Graham rejected calls for more witnesses and documents.
Before approving articles of impeachment Dec. 17, Democrats said they had an “open-and-shut,” “unassailable” and “incontestable case against Trump. Yet as soon at articles were approved by House Democrats, Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler want more witness testimony and new documents. Graham said Democrats’ case “sucks,” saying the president was angered by Pelosi’s delay in going to trial. Calling Pelosi’s actions a “breathtaking violation of the Constitution,” Graham isn’t about to let Democrats dictate the terms of a Senate trial. House Democrats didn’t let Republicans dictate the terms of the impeachment inquiry that Trump and House Republicans said was partisan and one-sided. Trump complained about getting no due process, not allowed to let Republican attorneys cross-examine Democrats’ witnesses. Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler refused to let House Republicans challenge the impeachment inquiry.
Pelosi knows that whatever negative PR value impeachment has had on Trump, it’s about to be erased in the Senate. Recent USA Today polls show that public opinion has shifted away from impeachment, giving Trump as sizable edge in battleground states against all Democrats candidates. Pelosi worried originally about how impeachment could backfire on Democrats in the 2020 election. Now that it’s started to backfire, you’d think Pelosi would want the impeachment debacle to end at the earliest possible time. “I am not going to support witnesses being called for by the president. I am not going to support witnesses being called for by Sen. Schumer,” Graham said. Graham envisions a “short trial as possible,” not one beyond Democrats current case against Trump. McConnell called Democrats’ case “shoddy,” saying the Senate is ready “to do the right thing.”
