Looks like Nancy Pelosi has a new strategy for taking down President Donald Trump: vote him out, then “lock him up.”
Rather than seek impeachment now, Pelosi is urging her party to take a more long-range approach: focus on booting Trump from office first and let the justice system prosecute Trump for his alleged “crimes.” The House speaker reportedly counseled this strategy at a meeting with Democrats Tuesday, saying she wants to see Trump “in prison.”
While it certainly sounds like Pelosi’s rhetoric is getting more extreme, her latest threat may just be an attempt to soothe pro-impeachment Democrats while winning support for her no-impeachment approach.
Lock him up?
The “vote him out, then lock him up” strategy is in keeping with Pelosi’s careful, deliberate approach to her party’s war with Trump. Rather than seek Trump’s impeachment, Pelosi has long sought to soothe Democrats with promises that Trump can be held “accountable” in other ways. The Speaker has urged Democrats to focus on investigating Trump first, pointing to financial records that various Democrat committees have successfully obtained through subpoena as proof that her more measured approach is working.
But Democrats are growing restive over Trump’s stone-walling of their various investigations, and some Democrats are beginning to suggest launching an impeachment inquiry if only to strengthen their legal position in the House’s subpoena war with the White House. While Pelosi is still in control, the impeachment caucus has grown larger, especially after Robert Mueller’s remarks last week that indicting Trump was “not an option.”
Mueller’s comments emboldened pro-impeachment Democrats and set the stage for a clash between Pelosi and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) at a closed-door meeting on Tuesday. Nadler reportedly pressed Pelosi to begin impeachment, but the Speaker fired back, saying, “I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison.”
“I think [her comment] clearly shows the true colors of Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic Party,” Mercedes Schlapp, White House director of strategic communications, told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” on Thursday. “They are focused and obsessed with investigation after investigation, despite the fact that the president of the United States and the administration has been transparent throughout this entire process. We’re moving on, Robert Mueller is moving on.”
According to a report by Fox’s Brooke Singman, Pelosi has made similar comments before. House Democrats told Fox that Pelosi has said, “We should go down there and arrest the man,” counseling Democrats to focus on winning in 2020, then prosecuting Trump.
A spokeswoman for Pelosi said that Democrats had a “productive meeting about the state of play with [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller report. They agreed to keep all options on the table and continue to move forward with an aggressive hearing and legislative strategy, as early as next week, to address the president’s corruption and abuses of power uncovered in the report.”
Pelosi winning
Pelosi has long held back on impeachment, warning that it will overshadow her party’s message and that pursuing impeachment without bi-partisan support would be a “gift” to Trump. Pelosi is sensitive to the reality that any impeachment push would fail in the Republican-held Senate and expose Democrats to punishment at the polls.
While Pelosi has faced mounting pressure from within her caucus, she still has the backing of committee leaders like House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA). Schiff said this week that impeachment without Republican support is “destined for failure.”
Nadler, who has power over any impeachment proceedings, has reportedly urged Pelosi to pursue impeachment. But so far, the Democrat has mostly used the power of his committee to do everything except start impeachment proceedings: the Democrat’s panel voted to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt last month, and Nadler will also begin a series of hearings on the Mueller report starting Monday. He is even seeking testimony from Mueller, even though the special counsel said that his remarks last week were all the public could expect.
Pelosi realizes that the party still follows her lead. On Wednesday, she sought to present a united front, saying the Democrats know “exactly” what they’re doing: sidelining impeachment and focusing on investigations instead.
Empty threat
Pelosi’s threat seems to follow from Mueller’s statement last week that indicting a sitting president was not an option. Rather than pursuing a failed impeachment push now, Pelosi says, better to beat him on Election Day and let the justice system prosecute him after.
But how serious is Pelosi about seeing Trump in handcuffs? For weeks, Pelosi’s attacks on Trump have grown more vicious in tone, but she hasn’t taken action to match the escalation in rhetoric.
In the last few weeks alone, Pelosi has accused Trump of a criminal “cover-up” and bringing about a “constitutional crisis.” Pelosi’s latest threat sounds like just another salve to the pro-impeachment Democrats desperate to see Trump walked out of the White House in handcuffs. Pelosi knows that she has no case for impeachment, and she knows that going down that road would backfire spectacularly, but she feels pressured to re-assure her colleagues that Trump will wind up in prison somehow.
But does Pelosi believe it herself? If she lacks the confidence to impeach Trump, what makes her think that Trump will be found guilty in a court of law? What crime does she expect Trump to be prosecuted for, anyway?
It sounds like Pelosi is sticking to her no-impeachment plan while dangling Trump’s imprisonment as a carrot on a stick to get her party motivated for 2020. Democrats will certainly fight their hardest to oust the evil Orange Man — but will he end up in an orange jumpsuit? Seems unlikely.
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