Speaker of U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi led a U.S. congressional delegation to Ghana from July 28 -31, 2019 to commemorate the “Year of Return” and mark 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. Official U.S. Embassy photograph by: Archibald Sackey and Courage Ahiati.
“We’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherf—“
Rashida Tlaib evidently was not bluffing when she explained to her 5-year old son what she and her squad in the House were going to do to President Donald Trump.
Some elders in the Democratic Party, like Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, have distanced themselves from Ms. Tlaib’s remarks, reports Jason L. Riley in the WSJ.
So Much for That
Under her leadership, Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised that Congress “will be transparent, bipartisan and unifying” and “will seek to reach across the aisle in this country, and across divisions across our nation.”
Democrats Itching for Impeachment
“The plain truth is that Democrats have been itching for impeachment since Mr. Trump was inaugurated,” writes Mr. Riley.
(Democrats have) never accepted the result of the 2016 election or shown anything but barely disguised contempt for his administration and supporters. All Ms. Tlaib did was shout out loud what others had been whispering. For Democrats, the question from the start has been when, not whether, to begin this fight. The question Democrats now face is whether they waited too long.
Impeachment without Bipartisan Support?
It’s true that support for a formal impeachment inquiry has grown steadily among Democrats in Congress, but in the past, Mrs. Pelosi has said that any such process will lack legitimacy without bipartisan cooperation. And as Mr. Riley notes, Pelosi doesn’t have it.
When Congress decided to move forward with the Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton impeachment inquiries, the entire House voted and both votes won large bipartisan majorities. Mrs. Pelosi so far has refused to honor this precedent, perhaps because she fears an overwhelmingly partisan result.
Whistleblower Complaint Smacks of Desperation
The Democrats’ decision to move forward with impeachment is born of frustration, not principle. And to do so in response to an anonymous whistleblower complaint about a phone call between Mr. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky smacks of desperation. The contents of the phone conversation and the complaint are now in the public domain, and voters can determine whether anything in them should cost Mr. Trump a second term. Democrats know they don’t have the votes in the Republican-controlled Senate to remove Mr. Trump from office. This is about the spectacle. It’s about roughing up the president for next year’s campaign.
Tlaib Pushing $29 Tees
Meanwhile, on Thursday Ms. Tlaib began hawking T-shirts that read, “Impeach the MF.” They sell for $29 and the money goes to her re-election campaign.
Her hometown newspaper, the Detroit Free Press, said the stunt is “exactly the sort of thing Donald Trump might do, if he were in Tlaib’s position.” Perhaps. Or maybe it’s an indication of how seriously Democrats expect people to take this impeachment circus.
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