Well, things are sure getting a lot more interesting fast! What the Mueller report with its clear evidence of multiple instances of obstruction of justice failed miserably to do, a secret whistleblower report apparently centered on Trump asking the new Ukrainian president in a late July telephone call to dig up (or make up) dirt on Joe Biden and his son while holding up hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, which the White House and DOJ blocked from its legally required transmission to the House and Senate intelligence committees, has apparently finally turned the tide among House Democrats in favor of going down the road of impeachment. Nancy Pelosi‘s bombshell announcement of a formal House impeachment inquiry really doesn’t change anything that is actually happening in the so far mostly ineffective investigations of Trump and his administration in multiple House committees, but signals a major shift in her position toward impeachment and reflects a sudden significant increase in the number of House Democrats, notably including moderates from red or swing districts, supporting impeachment (or at least a formal inquiry) as a direct result of the current Ukrainian story, which will be the main focus of investigation in the very near term. The catalyst was probably Trump’s own public admission, in response to the leaked reports of the whistleblower complaint and massive press coverage and investigation into it, of asking the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens. This is confirmed in the now amazingly released transcript/summary of that phone conversation. Despite Trump’s flimsy and changing justifications for withholding the Ukrainian aid and claims that he was just advocating for rooting out corruption (yeah, just like he does here!!), this is obviously a blatant abuse of power and essentially collusion with a foreign government to influence the 2020 election. As we already know from his public statements and the infamous George Stephanopoulos interview, he clearly sees nothing wrong in getting political dirt from foreign governments, and is probably genuinely surprised at all the outrage it has sparked, likely assuming that everyone else is as corrupt as he is. Also looming large in this mess is Rudy Giuliani’s publicly admitted direct involvement in this process over the past few months, including personally meeting with a high-level Ukrainian official in Spain to push for their investigation into Biden, reportedly with the assistance or cooperation of the State Department! Acting as Trump’s personal lawyer, this is almost as damning as Trump doing it himself. Additionally, Rudy has reportedly been stoking this apparently baseless Biden conspiracy theory with Trump for months, and therefore may well be personally responsible for the current mess! Rudy’s acknowledged meddling in foreign affairs as a private citizen is also highly problematic if not illegal. Despite congressional Republicans being predictably mostly silent on the current scandal, with some dismissing or justifying Trump’s actions and others attacking the Democrats for conducting another partisan witchhunt, there was a rare unanimous Senate vote to request release of the whistleblower report to the Senate and House intelligence committees, which has now been done, and a few Republican senators have actually voiced “concerns” over Trump’s alleged actions, “if true”. Of course, it remains to be determined exactly what evidence is in the whistleblower report, which has been retroactively classified by the White House after its released to the committees! Although only obliquely implied in the phone conversation, the evidence for a quid pro quo in Trump’s Ukrainian gambit, even though not necessary to show “collusion”, will also be important in determining how his actions are perceived by the public, and will certainly be strongly disputed by Trump and the Republicans to the greatest extent possible. Particularly in view of the retrospective classification of the whistleblower complaint, it would not be at all surprising if Trump et al act to stonewall any attempted House investigations into the allegations of the report, e.g. preventing White House witnesses from appearing and testifying, as has been the case with all of the other House committee investigations. And of course it still remains to be seen whether the Dems end up with enough votes lined up to proceed with articles of impeachment, which will still probably take many months to organize. In any event, there is virtually no chance he will be convicted and removed in the Senate, and the impeachment would end up dominating the 2020 campaign at all levels, probably not advantageous for the Democrats. In the words of our Glorious Leader, “we’ll see what happens”!