The inevitable has happened: The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives is moving forward on articles of impeachment of President Trump.
“Our democracy is what is at stake. The president leaves us no choice but to act, because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday morning. “The facts are uncontested. The president abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of our national security.”
She continued, “Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders and a heart full of love for America, today I am asking our chairmen to proceed with articles of impeachment.”
In a press conference after her announcement, Pelosi denied that this is a political action.
“This has absolutely nothing to do with politics. It isn’t about politics, partisanship, Democrats, and Republicans,” she said. “It’s totally insignificant. It’s about the Constitution of the United States. The oath of office we take to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. It’s about the president not honoring his oath of office.”
Pelosi said Democrats have no choice but to impeach Trump and that this isn’t about politics.
On the first point, the Democrats obviously had a choice not to go down the route of impeachment and instead focus all their energy on voting Trump out of office in 2020. But that goes into the second point: This was always about politics.
Impeachment is an inherently political process. It’s not a criminal or civil trial. It’s about whether or not Congress should remove a public official from office on the charges of committing high crimes and misdemeanors. After two months of congressional investigations, Pelosi determined that Trump met the threshold of impeachment on the charge of urging a foreign power, Ukraine, to assist him in the 2020 presidential election.
Pelosi knows what she’s doing. She knows this won’t move past the Senate, where Mitch McConnell will use this to his and the GOP’s advantage and make Democrats regret their impeachment push. The sole motivation behind impeaching Trump is to taint him in the upcoming presidential election because Democrats are betting that the American people will buy what they’re selling.
