Pelosi's Impeachment Move Takes Democrats on Leap Into Dark
Impeachment Inquiry Sets House Along Path With No Clear Map
(Bloomberg) -- Nancy Pelosi set House Democrats on a course toward an impeachment of President Donald Trump without a clear road map for where it will go and how long it will take -- even as new information comes to light.
Democrats accelerated their inquiry Friday, issuing a subpoena and setting plans for witness interviews. But Pelosi, the House speaker, must still settle internal divisions over the scope of the inquiry. Then will come a decision about whether to vote to impeach Trump, a process that could reach a climax amid the 2020 election campaign.
Pelosi said the newly intensified impeachment process -- focused primarily on whether Trump tried to coerce Ukraine’s leader to investigate Joe Biden, one of the president’s chief political rivals -- “should move with purpose and expeditiously.”
Yet if history is a guide, the process could take months. A generation after the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton, Pelosi is grappling with a different set of circumstances -- and mindful of the risk that pursuing Trump poses to Democrats’ hopes of defeating him in the 2020 election and keeping control of the House.
Moving Ahead
Democrats are moving ahead even as more potentially damaging details are revealed, including a Washington Post report on Friday that Trump told two senior Russian officials in the Oval Office in May 2017 that he wasn’t concerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, because the U.S. did the same in other countries.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said if true, the incident was “one of the most disturbing things we’ve learned yet.”
“The White House should immediately provide the Congressional intelligence committees with all the records of that meeting so we can get to the bottom of it,” Schumer said in a statement on Saturday.
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democratic candidate for president, called for legislation to secure U.S. elections. “This is just another example of the President’s crossing the line when it comes to our security versus his own interests,” she said in a statement.
Clinton and Andrew Johnson were the only presidents to be impeached by the House, and each was acquitted by the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned after the House Judiciary Committee advanced articles of impeachment.
The Johnson proceedings spanned three months of 1868, and Clinton’s lasted four months. The Nixon inquiry stretched from October 1973 to July 1974.
The Trump and Clinton cases have an interesting parallel: both came after lengthy probes by specially appointed counsel charged with looking into a politically sensitive episode. But the trigger for the impeachment inquiry in both cases sprang from a different matter.
Clinton was investigated by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr who was examining an Arkansas real estate deal known as Whitewater. The focus ultimately pivoted to the question of whether the president had lied under oath about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky when deposed in a separate sexual harassment lawsuit.
Trump had just survived Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of his 2016 campaign’s possible involvement in Russian election interference when the Ukraine allegations sent fresh shock waves through the political establishment.
Broad Mandate
But there’s also a key difference in the cases. Starr was given a broad mandate and at the conclusion of a four-year investigation his report laid out 11 possible grounds for impeachment. That gave the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee a ready framework to move quickly without conducting their own inquiry.
After the House approved two articles of impeachment, the Senate trial that followed involved videotaped depositions of just three witnesses.
This time, the investigation is carried out by the House. While Pelosi seems determined to advance through the process well before next year’s elections, it could be protracted, said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University.
The scope, the number of committees and the number of witnesses involved are critical, Zelizer said. Also, Trump’s White House has instructed some witnesses in other House investigations not to appear, citing executive privilege, and there’s a question of whether that will happen and whether court battles lie ahead.
Congress is now on a two-week recess, during which Trump will be able to dominate the airwaves with counterattacks.
The House Intelligence Committee plans to continue its work through at least part of the break. Pelosi is using the panel to lead the current phase of the investigation, focusing on Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainian leader and a whistle-blower’s complaint that also detailed alleged efforts by the White House to “lock down” records of the exchange.
Subpoena Issued
Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel and Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings issued their first subpoena in connection with the Ukraine case on Friday, seeking documents from Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
The whistle-blower’s complaint provided a guide to several potential witnesses -- including Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani -- but getting their testimony isn’t guaranteed.
“We will move as expeditiously as possible but we have to see what witnesses are going to make themselves available and what witnesses are going to require compulsion,” Schiff said.
Five other committees also want a piece of the action investigating Trump’s actions in office and his finances.
The breadth of the inquiry was the most notable area of discord among House Democrats after Pelosi said the chamber would proceed with an impeachment inquiry.
Progressives including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York want to take a broader look at Trump’s actions. But moderates from swing districts this week Pelosi to focus solely on Ukraine.
‘Looking Forward’
Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan was among those who said the Ukraine issue -- whether Trump withheld American aid package to Ukraine at the same time he pressed President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to start a corruption probe of Biden and his son -- is one that voters can readily grasp.
“We need to focus on the most egregious concerns, the ones that are prospective, looking to 2020,” Slotkin told reporters. “This isn’t about looking backwards, it’s about looking forward and protecting our political process.”
Representative Jamie Raskin, a progressive Democrat from Maryland, said a broader pattern of behavior by Trump should be reflected.
”I don’t think we disappear everything else we know about the administration, but it will be our task to sift through everything and to reduce these to recognizable high crimes and misdemeanors,” Raskin said.
Representative Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat and a leader in the moderate Problem Solvers Caucus, called for a narrow focus.
“We should keep this focused and we should let the facts guide us,” he said. “We should recognize how solemn a moment this is in our history and treat it as such and make sure that we follow facts and make our ultimate decisions based on those facts.”
Ocasio-Cortez said she would prefer a multifaceted inquiry that includes whether Trump has used the presidency to benefit his businesses. But ultimately, she said, she and others who want that may have to consider what is practical.
--With assistance from Erik Wasson, Emily Wilkins and Daniel Flatley.
To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net;Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, John Harney
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