If House Democrats really want to impeach President Trump, they should do it right. They should own it, as previous Congresses have done when impeaching previous presidents.
They should vote on the House floor to open a formal impeachment inquiry.
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As long as they avoid this step, they evince a lack of faith that Trump deserves to be impeached. Without a vote, they are just going through the motions of impeachment but without taking responsibility for their actions.
When Congress began the impeachment process for Richard Nixon, it did so with a vote. When Congress began the impeachment process of Bill Clinton, it also did so with a vote.
The impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868 likewise began with a vote of the whole House on Feb. 24, just three days after Johnson’s alleged transgression of firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. That affair was much more abrupt than any subsequent impeachment. Within a week of the initial decision and vote to impeach, articles of impeachment were approved and sent on to the Senate.
Still, even in that case, the House voted right at the beginning. It did not try to hide the ball from the voters, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doing now.
Pelosi is not violating any specific House rule. But in initiating the impeachment inquiry on her own supposed authority, she has defied historical precedent and the traditional understanding of how impeachments are supposed to work. As Quin Hillyer noted earlier this week, the official House historian explains the subject as follows: “Individual Members of the House can introduce impeachment resolutions like ordinary bills, or the House could initiate proceedings by passing a resolution authorizing an inquiry.” There is nothing here about the House speaker opening an impeachment inquiry by fiat.
It’s very clear why Pelosi is shielding her members from accountability. She is riding the tiger of a Democratic Party base that has been looking for an excuse to impeach Trump since before he was even inaugurated. On the one hand, Pelosi cannot afford to offend the enraged Left by putting off impeachment any longer. On the other hand, she is trying to protect dozens of vulnerable House Democrats, who will face grave consequences at the voters’ hands if they are perceived to have participated willingly in a frivolous or unwarranted impeachment inquiry.
If impeachment seems so obvious as the right thing to do, then Democrats should expect to be vindicated by the process. They should expect voters to thank them in the end. They should not be thinking first and foremost about protecting their vulnerable members in swing districts, as if they expect to be punished for what they are doing.
If impeachment is necessary for the rule of law and warranted for the good of the nation, Democrats should be moving forward without concern for such things. That they move with such timidity should be a warning not only to the rest of the nation, but to themselves as well.
