House Democrats find themselves in a difficult spot. On the one hand, their political base is hell-bent on impeaching President Trump, no matter how weak their case for it might be. This means elected representatives have to put on some kind of show that they’re actively pursuing impeachment, lest the small-dollar donations dry up and the primary challengers emerge.
Yet at the same time, the voting public strongly opposes impeachment. This means that Democrats also have to avoid being too serious about impeaching Trump. In the current environment, a formal impeachment process or an actual impeachment vote would probably get a lot of them thrown out of office and guarantee Trump’s reelection. It’s a joke perhaps too plausible that could explain an electoral strategy behind Trump’s often bizarre behavior.
As Democrats tried to steer a course between the Scylla of #resistance wrath and the Charybdis of voter retribution, they probably expected that one of their easier moves would be to question Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager and, in Democrats’ minds, a henchman to the White House supervillain. The Sept. 17 hearing should have been a slam dunk, a safe way to show congressional authority against a hated figure without stretching the case for impeachment beyond what was already written in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
Trump had, according to that report, asked Lewandowski to speak with then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions about reinserting himself into the Mueller investigation and firing Mueller. Although Lewandowski never did speak to Sessions about this, that conversation by Trump could be interpreted — it’s debatable — as an ipso facto illegal attempt by Trump to stop a Justice Department investigation into himself.
Democrats ran into problems, however, when Lewandowski showed up ready to rumble. He stymied their questioning with a combination of literalism and flagrant hostility toward his questioners that is better seen live than described in print. We cannot forebear, however, to note that he goaded Rep. Eric Swalwell as “President Swalwell,” in reference to the congressman’s hapless White House bid.
Suffice it to say that it’s hard to find any commentator who thinks the Democrats got the better of Lewandowski.
Democrats “apparently thought Lewandowski would elaborate on his extensive testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller and also on his testimony from earlier investigations by other House and Senate committees,” wrote the Washington Examiner’s own Byron York. “Instead, Lewandowski jerked Democrats around — and around and around.”
There’s no excuse for Democrats’ unpreparedness, which resulted in a spectacle both hilarious and unfortunate. It was hilarious because they looked like idiots, unfortunate because congressional authority was made a mockery in the process.
But let it serve as a reminder that the Democrats’ cynical public relations effort to mollify their base is not an example of actual congressional oversight. Rather, this is a political sideshow for the barbarians at the gate. It is consuming time and resources that ought to go toward real congressional oversight.
Take, for example, the use of Trump hotels by foreign guests, or of Trump facilities by U.S. officials. Or how about the new and ever-shifting reports that the Department of Defense spent $184,000 at Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland?
These are stories that need to get nailed down because they may be abuses of presidential power.
Congress also ought to launch an investigation into the federal government’s continued abuse of eminent domain, which is allowing state law enforcement to circumvent state-level reforms by acting jointly with Uncle Sam in policing for profit.
Congress should be dedicating its oversight efforts to reining in abuses by the executive, not hyping an extremely thin case for an impeachment that everyone on Capitol Hill knows ain’t happening.
