When it comes to impeachment, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still doesn’t even have the undivided support of her own party.
Ahead of Thursday’s vote by the full House to set impeachment rules, up to 31 freshman Democrats whose districts Trump carried in 2016 were forced to decide whether or not they are willing to go on record in support of impeachment — and some weren’t happy about it.
After weeks of insisting that the Constitution didn’t require a full House vote to start an official impeachment inquiry, Pelosi caved and announced a vote by the full House to set the rules of impeachment. Not quite a formal vote on impeachment, the resolution is aimed at squelching Republican non-cooperation with the probe.
Breitbart News reported that several moderate freshman Democrats from swing districts questioned Pelosi’s planned Thursday vote and were considering not voting with their fellow Democrats.
One, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ) said he won’t vote for the resolution because it “wouldn’t be good for Democrats or Republicans.” Reps. Collin Peterson (D-MN) and Anthony Brindisi (D-NY) also signaled unease with the vote. Brindisi told Politico that he “questions the timing and need for a vote.”
Partisan impeachment harmful
These moderates said that unless there is bipartisan support for impeachment, it will end up harming Democrats. And they are well aware that these moderate, Trump-leaning districts will feel the brunt of the damage.
Ultimately, the resolution passed in the Democrat-controlled House by 232-196. Two Democrats, Van Drew and Collin, joined the Republicans in voting against the resolution. No Republicans voted for it.
A new USA Today/Suffolk poll of registered voters found that only 36 percent thought President Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 37 percent thought that the impeachment probe should end.
The rules put forth in the resolution up for a vote will do little to make the impeachment inquiry more fair. Republican subpoena power will be limited, and Adam Schiff (D-CA)’s Intelligence Committee will have unprecedented power in the probe, to the detriment of the judicial and oversight committees. Schiff has already been accused of ethics violations and improper behavior in his handling of impeachment. His staff spoke to the whistleblower before the complaint was made, and he has been accused by witnesses of telling witnesses not to answer Republicans’ questions.
Keeping Republicans out
Some have suggested that Democrats want to keep the judiciary committee out of the impeachment battle because of powerful Republicans there like John Ratcliffe (TX) that would be able to rebut witnesses and make the case that Trump hadn’t done anything wrong.
Trump and some officials in his administration are refusing to cooperate with the impeachment investigation because of the way Democrats are conducting hearings, including selectively leaking closed-door testimony that they think makes Trump look bad and preventing Republican access to witnesses and transcripts.
Even NBC’s Tom Brokaw admitted that Democrats don’t have enough evidence to be doing an impeachment inquiry. Really, it’s an obvious election-year ploy to try to impact Trump’s approval ratings and keep people from voting for him in 2020. At least so far, however, it doesn’t appear to be working.
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