Speaker of the U.S.
House Nancy Pelosi came to Connecticut trailing clouds of impeachment.
Impeachment is the
removal of a governmental official from office. When the official is a
president duly elected to office in a national vote -- rather than, say, a
judge -- cautious politicians tend to be cautious. Pelosi herself is said to
be, in most news reports, opposed to impeachment. Newly elected U.S.
Representative Jahana Hayes said she would favor impeachment “if the facts
merit.”
Pelosi appears to
have herded the Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation, all Democrats, to
her view, most clearly articulated by U.S. Representative-For-Life John Larson
of the impregnable 1st District. “I commend the speaker,”
Larson said “I think she has taken the right tack ... especially when you’re
talking about something as monumental as impeachment. It’s important that we
follow regular order and the rule of law [or] you risk having it become
entirely partisan."
It would seem the
Democrats do not want impeachment, which could be brought to a screeching halt
in the Republican controlled U.S. Senate. But they do want to keep the issue on
their front burners through the 2020 campaign. This is why Democrat leaders are
agitating for an “impeachment inquiry,” thought by many to be a fishing
expedition designed to turn over hidden impeachable offenses.
U.S. Senator Dick
Blumenthal gave the game away when, shortly after the disappointing Mueller’s
report came to light, he told an interviewer how important it was that the
media should keep the impeachment embers burning.
Special prosecutor
Robert Mueller had poured ice water on the Democrat campaign to convict the
president of collusion – not a crime, in any case -- though Mueller did seem to
be waving a hindering prosecution flag both in his report and in a summation of
his report delivered shortly after U.S. Attorney General William
Barr, the left’s most recent punching bag, released Mueller’s lightly redacted
report. Barr was under no legal obligation to release the less than bombshell
dud.
A few months ago,
Pelosi’s daughter, intending a compliment, said of her mother, “She’ll cut your
throat, and you won’t even know it.” Progressives in Connecticut and elsewhere
are having some difficulty in swallowing Pelosi’s view of impeachment. Lucrezia
Borgia would have impeached the president months ago. Progressives, a
force to be reckoned with in Connecticut politics, understand correctly that
the sole punishment for impeachment is removal from office, and Pelosi has said
she would rather “see Trump imprisoned rather than impeached.”
Well then: 1)
Mueller and others have told us that a president cannot be indicted for crimes
while he is in office; 2) it is by no means certain that Trump will not prevail
against the Democrat choice for president in 2020; 3) should the unthinkable
happen, and Democrats are unable to capture the U.S Senate while holding the
House in 2020, Pelosi and other Trump hunters might not be able to imprison their
quarry until 2026, when the president leaves office.
Progressives in
Connecticut are becoming impatient. They want to know how long Pelosi and other
Democrat moderates intend to engage in rhetorical foreplay without bringing the
matter of impeachment to a climax? Nor are they alone. There are signs that an
impeachment-approving media is also becoming restless.
No one in the Connecticut’s
media brusquely put the question to Pelosi during her brief stay: If you
believe that Trump has committed yet amorphous crimes for which he might be
imprisoned, why do you not favor impeachment now? The answer to this question
is not needlessly complex.
Impeachment is
entirely a political affair of the heart. If the Democrats had command of both
the House and the Senate, they could proceed with an impeachment in both congressional
chambers – particularly if they had the criminal goods on Trump. But, so long
as the Senate remains in Republican hands, removing Trump from office remains a
consummation devoutly to be wished. Therefore, Democrat leaders intend to use
the threat of impeachment and seemingly endless court proceedings to deprive
Trump of a second term in office. Impeachment for them is a political cattle
prod, not an executioner’s axe.
Impeachment, Pelosi
told Democrats gathered at the “Bailey Dinner” is “a very, very serious thing
and we must have our strongest hand.” According
to an account in CTPost, Pelosi
praised “several House committee chairmen who are ‘silently exposing the full
extent of the president’s wrongdoing and corruption’ in preparation for
continuing court battles over the ‘criminal cover-up.’
“’We do understand
the urgency of now,’ she said, ‘and that we must fight this fight and win it
for our freedoms, for our people, for our country, for our land, for our
values. Everything is at stake.’”
No murmurs were
heard from progressive back-benchers in Connecticut reminding Pelosi that “the
urgency of now” means now, and not election day, Tuesday, November 3,
2020. Lucrezia Borgia would have understood the meaning of “now.”
Comments