The impeachment circus is about to begin.
Breitbart reports that 231 Democrats voted Wednesday in support of moving forward with the impeachment of President Donald Trump. Democrats still aren’t calling for a floor vote to officially open impeachment proceedings, but they have begun planning “hearings” as their latest attempt to take Trump down gets underway.
Pelosi rounds up her caucus
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sent Washington into a meltdown Tuesday when she announced that the House would move forward with an impeachment inquiry against President Trump over reports alleging that he arranged a quid pro quo with the president of Ukraine during a July phone call. And with Pelosi’s long-awaited stamp of approval, support for impeachment is the highest it’s ever been among House Democrats, all of whom are now on record as unofficially supporting Pelosi’s inquiry.
The headcount comes courtesy of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who forced a vote by issuing a resolution condemning Pelosi’s unusual, unilateral impeachment declaration. McCarthy’s resolution echoed fellow Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), who noted in a Tuesday tweet that “until the full House votes to authorize an inquiry, nobody is conducting a formal inquiry.”
“In the past 25 years, the House of Representatives has moved forward with impeachment against a federal officer three times, each initiated by an impeachment inquiry resolution approved by the full House, not by a unilateral decree of the Speaker,” McCarthy wrote.
Democrats voted to table McCarthy’s resolution unanimously. NBC News reports that a majority of House members now support “some kind” of impeachment action — whatever that means — with just about a dozen Democrats still holding out, according to the Daily Caller.
While the timeline for impeachment remains unclear, Democrats could bring articles of impeachment by the end of October, The New York Times reports. But the sense of urgency may not reflect sincere concern about Trump’s “treason” so much as a sense among Democrats that it’s now or never.
Now or never
To Republicans, the Ukraine scandal is simply Russia redux — but it’s clear that it’s not quite the same as the last Democrat hoax, which dragged on without resolution for two miserable years. It seems that Democrats are confident that the Ukraine scandal is fresh enough — and, for what it’s worth, easier to understand than Mueller’s byzantine, inconclusive probe — to turn public opinion against the president.
The big question now is whether it’s a mere performance, or if the Democrats are really serious. Democrats have claimed that Trump was a traitor since before the Mueller report even landed, but until now — and even still — they have never followed through.
But even as Democrats accuse Trump of endangering the anonymous intelligence official, Team Trump has fired back, accusing the Democrats, the media, and the so-called “Deep State” of attempting to oust Trump from office by force, rather than at the ballot box, according to Fox News.
For his part, President Trump released the phone call transcript Wednesday and a related “whistleblower” complaint Thursday, and Team Trump has claimed vindication from the documents, which do not show the president engaging in an explicit quid pro quo with Ukraine. But Democrats are dispensing with the facts and heading for the end zone, mindless of history and public opinion both.
Still, there hasn’t been a vote. The pressure is building — but when will the dam finally break?
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