David Corn: There's Just One Problem With Dems Fast-Tracking Impeachment [View all]

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There’s Just One Problem With Dems Fast-Tracking Impeachment
His name is Mitch McConnell.
David Corn


At the start of this week, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to his colleagues in the House that provided a status report on the impeachment inquiry he has been overseeing. He noted that after weeks of investigation and public hearings, “We have uncovered a months-long effort in which President Trump again sought foreign interference in our elections for his personal and political benefit at the expense of our national interest.” And he informed his fellow House members that the committee was preparing a report that will be handed to the judiciary committee “soon after” Congress’ Thanksgiving recess—and that the judiciary committee will then proceed with the “next phase” of the impeachment inquiry. Schiff wrote, “This is an urgent matter that cannot wait if we are to protect the nation’s security and the integrity of our elections.” He added, “we will continue with our investigative work and do not foreclose the possibility of further depositions or hearings, we will not allow the President or others to drag this out for months on end in the courts.”

The message: Impeachment is on a fast track. That’s been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s strategy—stick to a narrow case for impeachment (the Ukrainian caper), don’t get bogged down in a lengthy and complicated investigation, demonstrate that House Democrats are not overly fixated on impeachment at the expense of other work, and don’t test the voting public’s patience. This certainly makes sense. Though public opinion polls show support for Trump’s impeachment at about 50 percent, Democratic strategists are convinced that a long, drawn-out process will turn the public against the Democrats. And the next election is just around the corner. The closer an impeachment trial in the Senate gets to Election Day, the more power there will be to the Republican argument that voters across the land should decide Trump’s fate, not a bunch of senators in Washington. So the Democratic plan appears to be to draw up and vote on—and presumably approve—articles of impeachment before Congress breaks for the holidays in mid-December.

There is a possible problem with this approach: Mitch McConnell. Once the House Democrats adopt those articles and kick impeachment over to the Senate for trial, they will lose control of the narrative. And then McConnell, the wily Republican leader in the Senate, and other GOPers in that body will be in charge of the story. Though Chief Justice John Roberts would preside over an impeachment trial, McConnell has a lot of leeway in setting some ground rules for that historic event. Imagine if Trump’s defense team wants to emulate the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee and call Hunter Biden, the whistleblower, and others to the stand as part of Trump’s defense—to turn the trial into a circus or advance the phony cover stories, excuses, and distractions Trump and his allies have cooked up. The proceedings could turn into a free-for-all and provide Trump and the Republicans a platform for their various conspiracy theories. (Ukraine intervened in the 2016 election! Where are the Democratic servers?) Perhaps Roberts could keep the Republicans in line, but Senate rules do allow a majority to vote on questions of evidence and other matters. The rules state that the chief justice “may rule on all questions of evidence including, but not limited to, questions of relevancy, materiality, and redundancy of evidence and incidental questions, which ruling shall stand as the judgment of the Senate, unless some Member of the Senate shall ask that a formal vote be taken thereon, in which case it shall be submitted to the Senate for decision without debate.”

In other words, the Republicans could try to use the trial for their own purposes. And even if they don’t succeed in getting these and other witnesses to the stand, just having the fight will help them and Trump. During the recent hearings, Schiff was able to prevent Republicans from circusfying the sessions because he held the gavel. He rejected their requests for these sorts of witnesses. In the Senate, Roberts and McConnell’s majority, which is hostile to the impeachment process, will be in charge.

Then there’s Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who behaves like Trump’s Mini-Me. He has already announced he’ll conduct an investigation and hold hearings related to the activities of Joe and Hunter Biden in Ukraine. (There are no credible allegations they engaged in any wrongdoing.) Whether or not McConnell can turn the impeachment inquiry into a trial of the Bidens, Graham is aiming to do that on his own. Once the House passes articles of impeachment, the Senate Republicans could gain monopoly control of the Trump-Ukraine tale and use their power to morph a story of Trump wrongdoing into one of Democratic scheming and malfeasance.

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/theres-just-one-problem-with-dems-fast-tracking-impeachment-mitch-mcconnell/