To Impeach or Not To Impeach, That Is The Question...But Are We Screwed Either Way?

While Trump and his cronies are out alternating between crowing about “no collusion, no obstruction” and bitching and moaning about being unfairly persecuted by Mueller‘s team, with threats from Trump against those involved in initiating the investigation, there is a growing critical debate among Democrats about how to proceed. There are a number of options, and arguments can be made pro and con for all of them. The Mueller report itself unquestionably contains grounds for impeachment for obstruction and possible abuse of power, and includes a clear invitation for Congress to take action. Given the strength of the evidence detailed in the report, I have to wonder why Mueller avoided a conclusion on the criminality of Trump’s behavior. The three options for House Democrats are: begin an impeachment investigation now; proceed with multiple committee investigations to further develop and (especially) publicize evidence and use that as a basis to initiate impeachment proceedings later; and proceed with those investigations but not pursue impeachment, no matter what the results. The calculus behind these decisions is predicated on the legitimate assumption that in any event, the Republican Senate will not convict Trump (20 Republican senators and all Democrats would have to vote in favor for a conviction), and therefore he would remain in office and be officially judged “not guilty”, albeit with the stain of an impeachment on his record. Knowing Trump, he would certainly use that to his advantage to attack Democrats for wrongly impeaching him, which is a real risk for our side in 2020, especially in critical swing states. The question really comes down to which strategy (including timing) would damage Trump the most in the campaign. Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have already made it clear that they do not favor impeachment, at least for now, obviously for political strategy reasons, including the risk of political backfire in 2020, as well as inciting further political turmoil and division in the country. Although these are certainly legitimate concerns, as is the question of how Trump might react or retaliate against an impeachment attempt, there is also both a political and constitutional risk of not pursuing impeachment in the face of clear legitimate grounds for it. First, this would anger and alienate a significant faction of the Democratic Party. Second, the Democrats could legitimately be accused (though of course not by most Republicans in this case) of shirking their constitutional responsibility for political reasons, which is just what Republicans are doing. Third, it would set a terrible precedent of Congress abdicating its constitutional responsibility for clearly political reasons. Finally, Trump as well as future presidents would see this as a green light for any sort of misconduct as long as conviction in the Senate was highly unlikely or there was an otherwise favorable political situation. There are political minefields for any course of action, and this could really fracture the Democrats both in Congress and in the country at large. I think the “right” (constitutional) thing to do would be to impeach, either sooner or later, but I don’t think anyone can be sure what the politically most advantageous course is. The goal is to peel off as many independents and marginal Trump supporters as possible, since his hard core base will probably be energized by all of this. To that end, it might be advantageous to have House investigations and subsequent impeachment hearings going on during the campaign and not finish in time to allow the Senate to acquit him before the election. The White House is already making it clear that they will try to block all of the investigations, and the inevitable court battles will drag things out considerably, and could even end up playing to our advantage if as a result all of this is still in the spotlight during the campaign. However, there is also the voter fatigue factor to consider, and Trump is so unpredictable that almost anything can happen. Of course, although they need to take a firm stand on this, the Democratic presidential and other candidates also cannot allow this to dominate their messages in the campaign. It is ALL so damn complicated!!