As the 116th Congress is poised to come into being the central issue hanging over the proceedings like a crescendering storm cloud is the pressure on the Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings against Donald J. Trump. While the temptation has to be irresistible the exercise will not, in the current climate, lead to the removal of the President. Notwithstanding the recent court submissions which provided much evidence of Trump and his campaign wrongdoing the Democrats would have to impeach Trump on a partisan basis only to see him acquitted in the Senate on a likewise partisan vote. The two felonies that virtually indicted him as a coconspirator will not be enough to seal his fate. In order to obtain bipartisan legislative support as well as overall societal consensus there will have to be conclusive proof to the already overwhelming circumstantial case that Trump and his campaign conspired with a foreign power to subvert the American Constitution.
STATUS OF TRUMP INVESTIGATION AS OF EARLY DECEMBER 2018
The sensational revelations in the redacted court submissions of Trump’s former National Security Advisor, lawyer and campaign manager have made it abundantly clear that President Trump has committed felonies. In addition the mosaic of evidence available is pointing more and more to the fact that there had to be “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia and that the then future POTUS blatantly lied to the American people as to his financial motive as to his otherwise inexplicable support of Putin’s Russia. In addition, the stark conclusion emerging is that the circumstantial evidence points to a quid pro quo that in return for Russian intervention in favor of Trump the crippling Obama sanctions would be lifted. While Trump, his ever diminishing inner circle and Fox News are tweeting and broadcasting from the bunker that “the witch hunt” continues and that the court submissions exonerate him, the stark reality points to the opposite with far far worse to come.
THE DEMOCRAT’S QUANDARY
Ironically, for the moment, the current situation creates the greatest political dilemma for the Democrats in the House of Representatives who are fresh off a forty seat tsunami seat pick up and therefore in control of all the Committees that can expose every aspect of Trump’s life long criminal enterprise. The reason for their quandary is that they are being pressured to start proceedings to impeach Trump when every political sinew in their being dictates that they prioritize on correcting the imbalances in society that they ran on and were elected on.
However no lesser personage than John Dean, Nixon’s WhiteHouse Counsel who spilled the beans on Nixon has maintained that, in the light of the evidence, that the Democrats have “little choice” but to begin impeachment against Trump. He sums up that while Richard Nixon was corrupt Donald Trump is evil. Dean joins a chorus of more radical newly elected Democrats and their supporters. The cry is that the President is not above the law and it sends a cynical message to the electorate that the Democrats are colluding in allowing him to get away with crimes. Put another way if Trump had lost the election and been a private citizen there would have been no hesitation in holding him legally accountable in the courts.
THE ENABLING REPUBLICANS
The Democrats will receive no immediate help from the Republicans in solving their predicament. Their current attitude can be summed up as hoping the best and not preparing for the worst. If anything the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s, ongoing protection of the POTUS is, at the very least, cause for concern. He refused initially during the Presidential election to be party to a joint declaration that the Russians were interfering in American democracy. His mantra was exactly the same as Trump’s that this unanimous intelligence would favor the Democrats and he would not condemn Putin. Now McConnell is refusing point blank to allow a bipartisan motion to be debated on the Senate floor that would protect the integrity of the Mueller investigation. Since way back there have been whisperings as to his lack of objectivity on the subject of Trump and these escalated when his wife was appointed to Trump’s cabinet. At kindest he is compromised and will be the last Republican to bow to the inevitable. In the meantime it is noteworthy that he is one of the few whose loyalty has never been questioned by “The Boss”.
The House Republicans, are those that were elected from the rural areas were Trump still has support so they are hardly likely at this stage to put country and constitution before a potential primary defeat. So as matters stand the Democrats cannot bank on a Damascus moment from the Republican legislators. Paul Ryan, the outgoing Republican Speaker, who was highly respected in some Republican circles, rather than lead on this issue, took the easy way out by resigning as Speaker and not standing for reelection.
MULLER’S ATTITUDE AT PRESENT
As Jay H. Ell blogged last week the solution in this highly charged political situation is for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to indict the POTUS. Even if Mueller was so inclined, he is not ready to do so. He is more intent in proceeding slowly but surely to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. History will appreciate his efforts because he will join all the dots in a devastating indictment of the criminality, venality and evil of the POTUS. No one knows what internal pressure he is under with Trump’s appointee to replace Attorney General Sessions so he has own problems in seeing this sordid period in America’s history through.
But all this doesn’t help the Democratic leadership as they confront the political reality of what their immediate agenda should be. Added to their crisis is the imperative of several of the newly elected charismatic young representatives to dump the established leadership of the House, especially Nancy Pelosi.
WHY TERMINATION OF TRUMP IS NOT FEASIBLE AT THE MOMENT
The public are not where they were when Nixon’s end was inevitable. The latter’s two year investigative process had been, for practical purposes, public and when Nixon’s tapes revealed that he had colluded with the Watergate cover up and that he had obstructed justice everyone was on the same page. Most of the Trump investigation has been behind close doors with virtually no leaks from the Special Counsel. There have been only a limited amount of legislative investigation. If anything the Republican Legislature has mainly assisted Trump in covering up the whole sordid mess. Then if the substance of his alleged felonies are examined Trump’s forty percent supporters and the Republican legislators will not share the narrative the Southern District Federal Court of New York afforded them. The latter maintained that he cheated the electoral process by buying off the silence of two women that he had had consensual affairs with in order not to damage his Presidential electoral campaign.
There is a misplaced belief by pundits that sexual misconduct is the inevitable death knell of a political career. The impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying about a consensual affair was generally regarded as a political sham and his popularity rose as a result while several of those igniting the process had their careers unceremoniously terminated. It is widely reported that the sustained attack on Brett Kavanaugh for an alleged gross teenage sexual assault helped mobilize Trump’s base in the midterms. As for The Donald he is a self confessed philanderer with endless allegations of sexual misconduct against him, has been married three times and was caught on tape bragging that he grabbed women by the pussy. It is unlikely that his body politic are going to be shocked by him conspiring to pay off two more women with whom he had consensual affairs, to keep quiet. It is going to require a lot more than that.
DEMOCRATS’ PATH IS THROUGH NANCY PELOSI, CHUCK SCHUMER AND HOPEFULLY A FEW SENATE REPUBLICANS LEAD BY ROMNEY
Now more than ever do the Democrats need the skillful canny leadership of the veteran Pelosi. She is possibly the only candidate with the experience and political savvy to organize the House Committees to see to it that the Democrats are balancing the agendas of both holding Trump accountable and fulfilling the mandates of health care, infrastructure, the inequitable tax structure and the like. In addition she must negotiate with paranoid Trump as ironically some of their policies coincide. The approach to Trump has to be coordinated with Senate Democratic Minority leader Schumer who is intent in not appearing to give Trump any victories. That approach should be abandoned as the Democratic Party have to act on the assumption that Trump will not get a second term. Pelosi’s top priority is to meet the needs of her expanded electorate that delivered and that have to be persuaded that their effort was not an exercise in futility.
Schumer’s priority is to work with the Republicans, behind McConnell’s back, in the Senate. What Legislative GOP cracks that there are appear to be are among the Republicans in the Senate. While two of Trump’s main detractors are leaving there are rumblings and signs that others might fulfill their responsibility to the Constitution. While all the Republicans have been ominously quiet in the light of the court revelations several Republicans have registered their disquiet in the recent past.The bipartisan vote to protect Muller emanated from the Republican controlled Senate Judiciary Committee and the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee have been comparatively active in investigating the 2016 Presidential election. In addition there was an open revolt at Trump’s whitewashing of the Khashoggi murder.
The election of Mitt Romney former Republican Presidential candidate to the Senate who openly fought to prevent Trump from receiving the Republican nomination adds a new dimension to righting the ship. He is beholden only to the Utah electorate who have no great love for The Donald. If the POTUS has room on his worry list Romney should be added as he potentially represents a real danger to his future. Romney has leadership qualities and could well be the nidus for a revolt against Trump should the evidence become overwhelming. Romney is part of the old GOP and is under no pressure to buckle under Trump’s abuse of disloyal Republicans. Outgoing Speaker Ryan made no bones about the fact that he was looking to Romney, who was considered a moderate, to restore some of the values the GOP was formerly about.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Pelosi’s and Schumer’s objective is not to allow the current Congress to become embroiled in a premature futile impeachment fight with the Republicans. They have to withstand the pressure while at the same time investigate by publicly exposing his taxes, Russian business and the like and their link to collusion. They have to liase with like thinking Senate Republicans to protect Mueller and hope that when Mueller finally produces his report that Trump’s forty percent approval rating will have receded and or the Republicans will act in terms of the Constitution and follow the advice of John Dean and so many others - impeach and then remove “the evil” Donald Trump.
All in all a tall order and balancing act for the Democratic leadership. But their problems could ultimately be resolved if Mueller was able to persuade who may ever head the Justice Department following Sessions that Donald J. Trump should be indicted for conspiring with an adversarial foreign government to subvert the Constitution. As that is unlikely they have to plod on and ultimately restore the public’s faith in government by meeting their needs and bringing back integrity to the Presidency..
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