ADVERTISEMENT

The Case for Impeachment Grows Stronger

House Democrats have facts on their side. House Republicans have party unity.

The Case for Impeachment Grows Stronger
U.S. President Donald Trump listens during a round table meeting on education in Washington, D.C. (Photographer: Sarah Silbiger/Consolidated News Photos/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Here’s where the impeachment of President Donald Trump sits after the lawyers for the Democratic majority and the Republican minority made their presentations before the House Judiciary Committee on Monday.

The Democrats have solidified their abuse-of-power case against the president. A robust record of testimony and documentary evidence have now backed up the recording of the Trump call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and the initial whistle-blower accusations (which were second- and third-hand). If this were a judicial action, and the House were the equivalent of a grand jury, it would have done enough to secure impeachment, which is (if this were a judicial action) the equivalent of an indictment.

Of course, this is not a judicial proceeding. It’s a political one. So Democrats need more than the evidence; they need to make the case that impeachment and an election-year Senate trial are politically justified, and even compelled, by the evidence.

They’ve certainly persuaded almost all elite Democrats, almost all Democratic voters, most Democratic-leaning independents, a lot of elite specialists (such as nonpartisan prosecutors and legal and constitutional experts), and even a smattering of elite Republicans outside of the current Congress. They have not persuaded any Republicans in Congress — or at least none who are willing to say so. 

That means we’re headed for party-line votes (or close to it) on the House floor. 

In presenting their case today, the Democrats got off to a slow start. The opening statement of Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler was uninspiring; then Barry H. Berke, the panel’s counsel, and Daniel Goldman, the Intelligence Committee counsel, gave long presentations that didn’t make for good television. Far more effective was Berke’s questioning of Goldman and Steve Castor, the Republican minority’s counsel.

It brought home just how weak the Republican objections to the facts have been. At one point, Castor was reduced to denying that Joe Biden was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, as if Trump just incidentally happened to mention some random American to the Ukrainian president.

If any objective and open-minded viewers were watching, what Democrats put on was convincing. 

As for the Republicans, they did little more than kick up dirt when it came to the evidence. While they did talk about unfairness, their main goal seemed to be to encourage a story line focused on partisan bickering. They interrupted, they tried to make parliamentary inquiries and points of order, and they complained about procedures — including forcing votes over when the committee could take recesses. 

They repeatedly brought up Biden’s efforts as vice president to pressure Ukraine to fire a corrupt prosecutor, even using the film clip in which Biden brags about it. They resorted to this, despite the established fact that Biden’s actions — as witnesses had testified — in no way protected his son or the company Hunter Biden worked for. Indeed, Joe Biden’s behavior made it more likely that the company might be prosecuted. 

Instead of trying to persuade people based on the facts of the case, Republicans are providing their strongest supporters, the ones who are only following Republican-aligned media coverage of the story, with something to believe in, assuming that within the conservative information feedback loop no one will challenge any of it.

If members of the Judiciary Committee are yelling at each other (even if it’s just the minority raising silly arguments about when to take a recess), then Republicans hope people will conclude that there’s no reason to get into the substance of what the president did — that people who normally tune out what’s happening in Washington stay tuned out.

To fight that, Democrats have used the actual facts of the case in a fairly successful attempt to get the media to signal to citizens that, yes, something important is going on here. That strategy has been successful in keeping impeachment and removal from office more popular than not, without doing enough to hurt Trump’s overall approval ratings.

In any case, we appear to be heading for that party-line vote, and it’s hard to see right now what would change that.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Katy Roberts at kroberts29@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.