There are some Republicans in Washington who wish Inauguration Day were today, or tomorrow — or yesterday. They supported President Trump and appreciated his significant accomplishments, but now they are more than ready to move on from what has become a disastrous end to the Trump presidency. The fact is, though, the president’s term lasts for nine more days, until Jan. 20, and those days could be deeply troubling for the GOP.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Sunday evening that Democrats will move forward with impeaching the president a second time. “We will act with urgency, because this president represents an imminent threat to both [the Constitution and U.S. democracy],” Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues.
House Republicans have a conference call scheduled for Monday afternoon, which will give leaders their first opportunity to gauge what a wide variety of GOP lawmakers are thinking about the issue. Right now, it appears the great majority of Republicans believe that, as awful as the events of the last week were, the president did not commit an impeachable offense. Perhaps some others aren’t sure but believe that whatever Trump’s behavior, it is unrealistic to try to impeach him in the course of a few days when the president is literally on his way out the door. A very small number might support impeachment, while still others believe a quickie impeachment, whether warranted or not, would set a terrible precedent.
“I don’t see any real support on our side for it,” one GOP lawmaker said, noting that Rep. Adam Kinzinger is so far the only House Republican to call for Trump to leave office immediately, and even Kinzinger said Sunday that impeachment is “probably not the smartest move right now.” The lawmaker continued: “I think most people recognize [impeachment] is futile. The Senate doesn’t go into session until Jan. 19. It’s more Pelosi just one more time trying to poke everybody’s eye — another political stunt to tie Trump around our whole party one more time.” (The number-three House Democrat, Rep. James Clyburn, said on Sunday that Pelosi might impeach Trump and then not send the articles to the Senate until after the new Biden administration passes its 100-day mark, creating an unprecedented but apparently constitutionally permissible situation in which the Senate would hold a trial for an ex-president.)
Republicans are experiencing all sorts of conflicting emotions. “There are so many thoughts going through my head,” a second lawmaker said as he considered events of the last few days. Republicans were as shocked as anyone by the sight of Trump supporters storming the Capitol and by the resulting violence and loss of life. They also know it would not have happened had Trump not relentlessly pushed the idea that the election was stolen and scheduled and promoted the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse, from which some supporters moved to the Capitol and took part in the violence. And, of course, a majority of House Republicans supported the effort to challenge the ratification of the Electoral College results, which was Congress’s business on Jan. 6.
“There’s a lot of anger out there [among Republican members],” the first GOP lawmaker said. “Anger about what happened, introspection about the president’s role, and where we go as a party.”
Members are stunned and distressed by the behavior of their own supporters. “Ninety-nine percent of the people who entered the Capitol that day were Trump people,” noted a third GOP member. “They were foolish, just totally foolish.” The member also found fault with the president: “Telling people that we [in Congress] were going to overturn the election on Jan. 6, that was definitely dishonest. And throwing [Vice President] Pence under the bus was not good — he should have never gone down that road.”
But others stopped short of blaming the president. “I don’t blame anyone but the person [who commits violence],” the second lawmaker said. “It’s not like the president spoke and people then ran out and made Molotov cocktails or pipe bombs. They came with them. I don’t think I should ever be able to say that I committed this or that act of violence because somebody said something. I think people should be personally responsible for their actions.”
Some lawmakers, while condemning the attackers at the Capitol, also accused Democrats of having been soft on the violent riots that took place around the country last summer. “When a parent keeps saying something is OK, the other kids think it is OK,” the second lawmaker continued. “Nancy Pelosi never condemned the riots, and hypocrisy is a problem.” The third lawmaker added, “The bad part is the Trump people just assume nobody’s getting prosecuted for anything else, so why can’t I breach the Capitol?”
Beyond attributing blame, the more immediate question for Republicans is what to do this week. Just as in 2019, when Pelosi pushed impeachment through the House, minority Republicans have no power to stop the majority. Given the workings of the House, Democrats, if they choose, will be able to skip the procedures once thought to be an integral part of the impeachment process — a vote to proceed with an inquiry, followed by a committee investigation of the president’s conduct, followed by the opportunity for the president to defend himself, followed by a debate over the proper way to proceed, followed by a Senate trial. Democrats, racing to impeach Trump before his term expires at noon on Jan. 20, can dispense with nearly all of that. They can pass a rule creating a new procedure and then pass an article, or articles, of impeachment whenever they want.
In the first Trump impeachment, GOP leadership took pride in the fact that no Republicans voted to accuse the president. That wasn’t an accident. Party leaders kept careful track of each member’s concerns; they helped answer any questions and enlisted knowledgeable members to brief other members who were locked out of the impeachment process. The strongest glue keeping Republicans together was the belief, shared by all, that the Democratic process was unfair.
Now, GOP officials acknowledge there won’t be that 100% loyalty this time around. In addition to Kinzinger, one GOP aide said, “I wouldn’t be shocked if there were a few [who support impeachment]. I don’t think we can get a goose-egg again.” No goose-egg, but it does appear, at the moment at least, that the number of Republicans supporting impeachment will be very, very low.
In the first impeachment, the unfairness argument was so effective with Republicans because 1) the impeachment process really was unfair, and 2) it was a way of uniting GOP lawmakers against an effort to cripple their party. Now, it is not clear whether Republicans will have any unifying theme. The argument one hears the most from them is that another impeachment would be “divisive.” “All the members I’ve heard from think this is a very divisive idea,” said the first GOP lawmaker. “Pelosi’s latest impeachment push, just like her last one, is certain to further drive the American people apart,” said a fourth Republican member.
Beyond that, it seems likely that Republicans will eventually mount a more substantive defense of Trump. The Democrats’ current draft article of impeachment is titled, “Incitement of Insurrection” and charges that the president “willfully made statements that encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — imminent lawless action at the Capitol. Incited by President Trump, a mob unlawfully breached the Capitol, injured law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress and the Vice President, interfered with the Joint Session’s solemn constitutional duty to certify the election results, and engage in violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts.”
Republicans will base a defense on a careful reading of Trump’s speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally just before the attack on the Capitol. Trump did in fact urge attendees to march to the Capitol, where he said they should “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard. That’s not exactly incitement of insurrection. “The speech itself does not give a clear basis for the charges of insurrection or incitement,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said on Fox News over the weekend. “The president talks about his followers marching on Congress peacefully … He does not call for riots. He does not call for violence.”
Democrats will undoubtedly argue that in the bigger picture, Trump whipped up his supporters for two months over the charge that the election was stolen. That is true. But the specific link between the president’s speech on Wednesday and the attack on the Capitol, as charged in the draft impeachment article, is not at all clear.
The wild card in all of this, of course, is what the president himself will do in his final days in office. Some Republicans were delighted to hear that he plans to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday to highlight his achievements in the area of immigration. “I would like to see him, with the time he has left, thank America for the opportunities he had and talk about all the things that he accomplished,” said the second lawmaker. “The list is pretty long.” When I asked whether he believed Trump would keep focused on something like that, the lawmaker laughed and said, “Do you ever feel like you’re able to predict him?”
Still, it was clear that the Republicans who spoke on Sunday do not have dark forebodings of disaster coming in the next nine days. “I hope everyone will take this time to take a deep breath,” said a fifth congressman. “I fully expect there will be a smooth transition of power on Jan. 20.”
