In today’s testimony, Mr. Mueller has thrown the gauntlet at the feet of Nancy Pelosi. He has explicitly rejected the unspoken hope and promise that someone besides Congress will hold this administration accountable for its many high crimes and misdemeanors.
Mr. Mueller patiently detailed, over and over, the compelling evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors committed by Mr. Trump known to his investigation. He said as explicitly as he was able within the legitimate confines of his role that responsibility for punishing this behavior lies with Congress.
I view today’s hearings as the mechanism for Mr. Nadler and Mr. Schiff (chairs of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, respectively) to tell Ms. Pelosi on the record that an impeachment investigation MUST begin.
There can be no further delay. The evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors committed by Mr. Trump is already compelling, and there is surely more to come since gathering such evidence was not ever the primary purpose of the Mueller investigation.
Ms. Pelosi’s refusal to begin impeachment hearings until now is an existential threat to American democracy as we know it, more real and immediate than any physical invasion by a foreign power. Our children and grandchildren, if they are not consumed by a nuclear holocaust provoked by Mr. Trump, will judge us by what we do today. Mine are already judging me.
Nancy Pelosi MUST allow the House to begin a formal impeachment investigation. NOW.
Did you see Pelosi’s press conference with Schiff, Nadler and Cummings’ yesterday after the hearings?
I did. I understand that Congress is unlikely to announce the beginning of an impeachment inquiry the week before it adjourns for its six-week August recess. I hope that the announcement of an impeachment inquiry will be pretty much the first order of business on the return of Congress in early September.
While I appreciate the need for each member of Congress to spend time with constituents, I am left with the feeling that we Democrats are fiddling while Rome burns.
Mr. Trump does permanent and irreversible damage to America each hour that he remains in office.
Yes Trump is doing great harm to America (and while it maybe permanent, I can’t get myself to admit that yet) but I fear making him that much more powerful by escaping conviction, and to think of what could happen then. As I said in a previous thread, do you want to impeach Trump because it is the moral and right thing to do; or do you want to impeach Trump to remove him from office? While I’m tempted to say the former–I fear a lack of conviction (and at this point, a lack of public support for impeachment) will only strengthen Trump and embolden him to do even greater and unthinkable atrocities.
As I said previously, I don’t need overwhelming public support and 17 GOP Senators willing to convict BEFORE we start inquiries. But we need to see cracks of hope that we can achieve that. We need some GOP Senators disgust, we need a majority of independents supporting impeachment inquiries to hope that by the time the case is laid out, that we could POSSIBLY get the votes we need. But I see no indications that will happen based on yesterday. Do you?
And Mueller testifying just days before the August recess show how the WH is winning the PR battle of delay. Never mind tying up subpoenas forever in court does not bode well for the Pelosi strategy of collecting all the facts–like Trump’s financials–for a impeachment to realistically happen before the 2020 race starts in earnest. What can I say except to say the *&^%f*cker won this round.
So unless lightning strikes and there is a real chance to WIN a conviction, I’m afraid we are stuck with a November 2020 showdown. At the very least Mueller gave us great TV spots to run that fall, WHEN EVERYONE IS PAYING ATTENTION.
So it appears everything boils down to election day (unless you can give a convincing argument about how we achieve a conviction that is not solely based on “hope” and “doing the right thing”, which are commendable, but could very well make things worse). And that’s why I’m concerned about stupid Democratic messaging like “#AbolishICE” and other slogans that are gifts to Trump and his minions. I don’t care if we nominate AOC herself (yes, to young) as long as she runs with a middle of the road (sure let’s call it milquetoast) message that appeals to moderates in the suburbs. We don’t need to nominate rhetorical bomb throwers for President to juice up base turnout, Trump is doing a great job firing up both bases. We need to appeal to voters (the same voters that gave us the House in 2018) that are sick and tired or all the BS from both sides. They will deliver the elections to the Dems and restore (hopefully) sanity in America.
Lastly, while I’m no where near the Biden band wagon, yes, I’m open to voting for any candidate that is beating Trump by eight points in Ohio. Call me all the names you want–sellout, DINO, neoliberal corporatist–I don’t care. I want to win and rule #1 is don’t do stupid things. This is our election to lose. Slogans like #AbolishICE is going to do that. (The message can be framed with a far less toxic impact at the ballot box.)
I agree with your pragmatic streak, but there is a danger it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. We cannot push for impeachment now because the polls are not with us and the Republicans aren’t there yet, but they weren’t when hearings started in 1974 either. People are just paying attention to the 2020 race and the Mueller report. We have to get access to those witnesses the White House is hiding and compel them to testify. We have to follow the blueprint Mueller lays out for Congress to do this job and hold hearings.
Once these things happen they become the news. They become the story and now it puts Trump and his defenders (and enablers) on the defensive. Make them take votes and hold those votes around their necks.
This is what Republicans do. Obamacare was popular until they held death panel hearings and made it unpopular. Hillary was the most popular politician in America until they held hearings and she wasn’t anymore.
The first big difference is we are right on the merits of our case and they are not. They second is that they have the leadership to pursue their bogus charges and we don’t have the leadership to pursue real ones.
I find myself increasingly annoyed by how these appearances have been covered. People who clearly have not been paying attention have been measuring yesterday’s appearances against misplaced expectations. Many of those who are commenting and analyzing have read the Mueller report and are thus complaining they did not hear anything new, but seem to forget that the vast majority of Americans have not read the report.
Indeed. For example, the NYTimes published an “analysis” piece whose headline is “Lack of Electricity in Mueller Testimony Short-Circuits Impeachment”.
Say WHAT? I’m disgusted by “journalists” who tell us that a momentous decision such as removing a criminal from the Oval Office is determined based on how “electric” an official appears in a hearing room.
Mr. Mueller presented the facts. Those facts have all the “electricity” needed to remove this criminal from power.