House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her position clear to rank-and-file Democrats this week when she announced her willingness to back a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“We want this to be done expeditiously,” the California representative instructed Democrats. “Expeditiously.”
Pelosi and other Democrats want to ensure they are not left running an impeachment investigation the public doesn’t support, so they are acting quickly.
In a sign Democrats want to move fast, Pelosi has called on the House Intelligence Committee to meet over the two-week recess to delve into the allegations that Trump abused his office when he asked Zelensky to investigate a corruption allegation regarding former Vice President Joe Biden, who is running for president and is considered by many to be Trump’s chief political rival.
“There is a desire to finish this as fast as possible,” Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat, said after a closed-door meeting with Pelosi this week.
Democrats believe the new whistleblower charges are resonating with the public and increasing their desire to impeach Trump.
But they don’t know how long the public’s support for impeachment will last, and if they wait too long, it could become politically damaging to 2020 Democrats.
“Voters are tired of prolonged investigations and a myriad of hearings,” pollster Ron Faucheux, president of the polling firm Clarus Research Group, told the Washington Examiner. “Politically, they should focus on the Ukraine affair, keep it simple, and do it as quickly as they can without looking rushed.”
Swing-district moderate Democrats have the most to fear when it comes to the public’s impeachment fatigue, and they want the party to zero in on the new whistleblower complaint rather than the wide-ranging investigations into the president that six committees have been conducting for the past year.
“I am worried about it getting too broad,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger.
The Virginia Democrat’s seat is one of the most vulnerable to a GOP takeover among House Democrats and is rated a “toss up” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Pelosi appears eager to eliminate the other investigations and focus on the whistleblower allegations against Trump.
“It is understandable to the public,” Pelosi told Democrats this week. “It has clarity in terms of what he did.”
She told the six committees that have been looking into Trump for months on a wide variety of matters that while they are “tasked to do their work,” as part of the impeachment investigation, it’s time to wrap up and focus on the new whistleblower complaint.
“We have to strike while the iron is hot,” Pelosi told lawmakers, calling the new allegations against Trump “a national security issue.”
For months, Pelosi has resisted launching an impeachment investigation, arguing to Democrats that it lacks support.
“The public isn’t there on impeachment,” Pelosi told her caucus in an August conference call.
The whistleblower complaint against President Trump and a subsequent release of a rough transcript of his call with Zelensky, however, convinced Pelosi that Democrats could make a case for impeachment that the public would both understand and support.
New polling suggests she may be right, at least for now.
New polling that was conducted after the public learned about the whistleblower complaint and the allegations against the president show a modest increase in support for impeachment.
About a half-dozen polls show public support for impeachment ranging from a low of 37% (Ipsos/Reuters) to a high of 47% (YouGov/HuffPost). The polling shows public support grew about six percentage points in two surveys.
A Politico/Morning Consult poll found a seven-point increase for impeachment among voters but that voters are split 43% in favor and 43% opposed to impeachment.
Republicans are accusing Democrats of rushing the process by refusing to hold a formal vote to open an impeachment inquiry.
If such a vote had occurred, the judiciary committee would by precedent be charged with conducting an official inquiry that would have to follow certain rules and be carried out more deliberately. That could take more time than Democrats want to allow.
“You only trounce procedure in your own chamber for political reasons,” a GOP Judiciary aide told the Washington Examiner.
Senior Democrats may be looking back warily at the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, whose popularity soared after the House voted to impeach him in December 1998. Two-thirds opposed Clinton’s removal from office after the impeachment vote. The Senate two months later acquitted him on counts of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky episode.
Cook Political Report Editor and Publisher Charlie Cook this week warned that Democrats should be wary of current polling that shows the popularity of impeachment is on the rise.
“We are too early into the impeachment process to have any real idea of where it’s landing with voters,” Cook wrote this week. “I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in any polling on impeachment that comes out this week. What polls ask voters about today could be very different from what we are talking about in a week or two.”
