Briefly Noted: The Pseudo-Impeachment
The WSJ has a nice, conceptually clear, explanation of the charade that's going on in the House these days. It's in their editorial: The Pseudo-Impeachment: Democrats hold show trials rather than vote to oust the President .
Obviously, the Dem strategy outlined below is fraught with peril. The WSJ thinks the Dem strategy will somehow protect swing-district Dems from the ire of voters, who (according to polls) overwhelmingly want them to drop their collusion fantasy and instead come to grips with reality. My guess is that voters will see through this--the mere lack of an impeachment vote won't mollify voters in the face of this manifest neglect of voter concerns. Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and Jerrold Nadler may be able to get away with this charade of pseudo-impeachment, but their safe districts have little to nothing in common with swing-districts.
Here are the essentials:
House Democrats are escalating their campaign against the Trump Administration with complaints that its resistance to Congressional requests for documents is a threat to democracy. It’s more accurate to say that Democrats are performing what amounts to a pseudo-impeachment so they don’t have to undertake a real one.
Democrats are agonizing over impeachment because while they’re itching to do it, special counsel Robert Mueller’s report blew up their Russian collusion hopes. ...
What to do? Democrats have decided to act out a pseudo-impeachment that claims Mr. Trump and his Administration are committing offenses against the Constitution without daring to open a formal impeachment inquiry. The split-level goal is to appease the left while sparing the swing-district Democrats who delivered the 2018 majority from ever having to vote on articles of impeachment.
The problem with this play-acting is that it has Democrats fulminating about actions that aren’t even misdemeanors, much less high crimes. Exhibit A is Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler’s threat to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for failing to turn over the entire Mueller report to Congress.
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How is Mr. Barr obstructing Congress by providing access to nearly all of the Mueller report, and 99.9% of the section on obstruction of justice? Mr. Nadler is threatening to sue Mr. Barr to get the rest, but we’ll go out on a limb and predict he has no chance of winning in court. Even if a liberal judge agrees, the decision would be overturned on appeal.
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The real offense against the Constitution here is by Democrats. Oversight of the executive branch is an important Congressional power, but the Supreme Court has said it should be related to Congress’s legislative function or constitutional duty. It can’t merely be a trawling exercise to see what nasty details they can find to score political points and discredit a President before the 2020 election.
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... The current pseudo-impeachment is a fraud on the Constitution and the American public.