Nancy Pelosi has warned that the ongoing controversy over an alleged government whistleblower could prompt a “whole new stage of investigation” into President Donald Trump.
“If the Administration persists in blocking this whistleblower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the President, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation,” the House speaker wrote in a letter to colleagues Sunday, according to The Washington Examiner, seeming to open the door to impeachment.
Pelosi warns of new peril for Trump
Pelosi has long opposed impeachment, and has instead urged Democrats to focus on investigating Trump, rather than prematurely ousting him. But a new anti-Trump hoax emerged last week that has injected fresh momentum into once-dormant impeachment hopes.
After an anonymous whistleblower complained that Trump made a vague “promise” to a foreign leader, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump asked Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
With two years of frenzied “collusion” claims now just a fading memory, Democrats are now saying that this time, it’s the real thing. Although the Wall Street Journal reported that there was no quid pro quo, the media is again warning of Trump’s demise for the one-millionth time, while Democrats are saying that it’s now or never to impeach Trump.
Indeed, Fox News reports that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who long claimed he had “proof” of Trump–Russia collusion even after no collusion was found, has said that Democrats may have no other choice. Meanwhile, Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed the whistleblower complaint, but Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire is refusing to hand it over.
For her part, Pelosi warned in her letter that Democrats will ask Maguire to turn over the complaint at a congressional hearing Thursday, adding that Democrats want to hear from the whistleblower “directly” — and if their demands aren’t met, Democrats will step up their investigations.
“We must be sure that the President and his Administration are always conducting our national security and foreign policy in the best interest of the American people, not the President’s personal or political interest,” Pelosi said, according to Politico.
Shifting or bluffing?
Still, the House speaker has been criticized by progressives for her continued refusal to definitively support impeaching Trump, even amid the whistleblower scandal. Pelosi’s letter comes after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — whose differences with Pelosi on impeachment and other matters have split the caucus — hinted that Pelosi’s refusal to impeach Trump was the “bigger national scandal” than “the president’s lawbreaking behavior.”
But Pelosi is a shrewd politician who, unlike Ocasio-Cortez, seems to at least care about what the polls have to say — and they are decidedly not in favor of impeaching the president.
If the Democrats really believed what they’ve been saying, they would have impeached Trump already. For months they’ve had Robert Mueller’s report, a supposedly damning document that lays out a “path to impeachment.” Now there’s a whole new stage of investigation, Pelosi says — but what does that even mean?
Compare that with Rep. Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) vague threats of having launched an “impeachment inquiry,” which, so far, has amounted to no more sham hearings and pointless re-litigation of Russiagate. Will this latest hoax actually change anything?
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