It’s not about Nancy Pelosi or breaking dams. Yet, it could even happen Wednesday. But it will not be a tipping point.
There will be a tipping point that is not identical to a critical mass. It could even be the general election day in 2020. Regardless, it will be about the inquiry.
Inquiry comes first, but the practical need to investigate is being obstructed at every turn and should signal a turn to the judicial. There is yet more lawfare ahead.
Not yet #ImpeachDonaldTrumpNOW — but soon.
There are a lot of moving parts that include financial and tax inquiries, money laundering revelations, and then there’s a constantly building pattern of obstruction. What’s encouraging is that things continue to fall into place on a variety of fronts, with so much more to be revealed.
It is always disappointing to see the implied subtext of bipartisanship from Democratic leadership even as that meme was ignored by the GOP in the previous administration. But it is part of the process until that tipping point is reached.
The problem is that the logic of tipping points makes such events complex, similar to the incommensurability of scientific progress. One person does not make a tipping point. Impeachment regardless of the prospect of a GOP senate majority vote will not be a tipping point. We may only recognize the tipping point retrospectively so we cannot predict or plan for it. It is always about the inquiry. It still moves.
Justin Amash is not yet the augury of even some minor GOP defection to impeachment, especially since the GOP just recruited primary challengers to him.
Their reasoning isn’t quite the same as the traditional pro-impeachment faction of the party. Those Democrats argue that Trump deserves to be impeached for his obstruction-y actions outlined in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.
Instead, these influential lawmakers see two more practical reasons to open impeachment inquiries:
1) saying the “i” word would help them make their case to the courts to get key information in their investigations, and
2) Trump is backing them into a corner by blocking all those investigations.
To break those down a bit:
- Trump is blocking every investigation of significance that Congress has into him and his administration. (Twenty so far, a Washington Post analysis finds.) Congress is going to the courts — already with some success — to get what they want. But they are at risk of losing some key court fights such as the one to get the unredacted Mueller report. Congress could strengthen its hand by starting impeachment proceedings. Grand jury information, which makes up much of the redactions in the report, is typically kept secret except for judicial proceedings. Impeachment is a trial, so saying the “i” word would turn Congress into a judiciary body (instead of a legislative one) and thus strengthen its case for why it needs to see the underlying grand jury testimony that makes up the Mueller report.
- Some of these Democrats on the Judiciary Committee argue that if Congress wants to assert its constitutionally mandated oversight authority over this president — and future presidents —- it has no choice but to launch an impeachment inquiry. On Tuesday, former White House counsel Donald McGahn ignored a subpoena and didn’t show up to a House hearing. He’s a key witness in the Mueller report about Trump’s attempts to fire the special counsel and then lie about it. Rep Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), a Judiciary Committee member who agrees with those who made their case to Pelosi, told The Post Monday: “If the answer is, ‘No, you can’t talk to anyone, you can’t have anything, we’re simply not going to cooperate,’ then at that point the only avenue that we have left is the constitutional means to enforce the separation of powers, which is a serious discussion of impeachment.”
They tried investigating Trump first, rather than jumping to impeachment based on the Mueller report like other Democrats wanted. But if they can’t even get the initial information to start these investigations, what’s the use?