Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have been hitting the airways to declare that the evidence of impeachable acts by President Donald Trump is not only clearly established by the Special Counsel Report but additional impeachable acts are unfolding every day. However, on Wednesday, a closed door caucus was held with a very different and apparently uncontested view: no impeachment. I have previously written about the disconnect of what Democrats are telling their voters and what they are actually saying to each other. Since before the midterm election (when impeachment was a big sell for giving the Democrats the majority), I do not believe that the House leadership ever intended to allow an impeachment to move forward against Trump because it is not in their political interests.
According to reports, none of the firebrands calling for impeachment publicly even raised the issue in the caucus. Instead, Pelosi raised it to reaffirm again that it was a non-starter. What may be red meat for Democratic voters on MSNBC is clearly off the menu for not just the House leadership but the House rank-and-file.
While I think this would be a difficult impeachment case given the mixed and incomplete findings of Robert Mueller, that has nothing to do with Pelosi and others fulfilling their oaths if they believe impeachable conduct has occurred.
Pelosi said that they will not initiate impeachment proceedings. Period. Not a single member voiced a dissenting view. She even spoke in the voice of their voters and said that they have to be shown other things that they can do: “Why aren’t we impeaching the president? Why aren’t we impeaching him? They get a little down.”
The description of voters being “a little down” is an understatement. Many members raised impeachment as the pitch for gaining control of the House and many are still pretending that they are actively working to that end, including a number of presidential candidates. That leaves a disturbing disconnect between what the members are saying among themselves and what they are telling the public. It also makes investigations looks like little more than “bread and circus” distractions.
What do you think?