The Democratic Majority in the US House need to get that they have a duty to uphold the ‘rule of law’ and the US Constitution. At this point, it’s the US House’s obligation to carry out justice as it is the only entity within the US governmental system that can hold the republican President Donald Trump accountable for his misdeeds. The precedent should not be set where the president is perceived to be above the law, where he can trample on the ‘rule of law’ with impunity. The US Congress as been presented with the indictment in the form of the FBI’s 3/22/2019 final report on its 22 months long Trump-Russia probe led by the Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, but it’s up to the US Congressional lawmakers to have the courage to act.
Democrats arguments opposing Impeachment inquiry…
The Democratic Party leaders in the US Congress have been pushing for the US House oversight committees to conduct serious investigations which would include interviewing key witnesses like the FBI’s Special Counsel Mr. Mueller and the White House’s former Counsel, Mr. Don McGahn. Their thinking is that this is a away to inform and educate the public as to how the president has been breaking the law as many are not likely to have read the FBI’s 448 pages. The Democratic leadership is saying that they would like the public to be more on-board, if and when they decide to proceed with the impeachment process. They’ve voiced concerns that peoples in the country are already so divided where they don’t want to be perceived as exacerbating this situation.
In addition, Democratic leaders are worried that the November 2020 elections are not that far away to where the impeachment process could take away from Democratic Party presidential candidates ability to focus solely on their messaging of addressing the bread and butter needs of the voters.
Also, there is the reality that the impeachment would not result in the removal of the president from office because the US Senate with its Republican Party majority would not vote in favor of impeachment. But the US House has been constitutionally empowered to invoke the articles of impeachment. The decision not to do their solemn duty would be akin to a prosecutor being presented with a slam dunk case of criminal activity but deciding against going to trial because it could cost him, politically, especially if he doesn’t prevail.
Democrats argue following in Pushing for Impeachment inquiry…
It’s a fact that all presidents who have been impeached in the past by the US House were not removed from office by the US Senate. President Richard Nixon resigned before the US Congress could begin voting. But these presidents will forever be marked with the words, impeached.
It appears to me that the Democratic leaders, including the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are looking to avoid invoking the ‘articles of impeachment’ by committing to conduct intense, in depth hearings to inform the public about the president’s wrong doings.
But, if the Democrats avoid doing their constitutional duty of proceeding towards starting an impeachment inquiry against President Trump, they’ll be perceived to be no different from their GOP counterparts, where fear of political negative consequences, rule the day.
Finally, if the White House continues to fight US House’s subpoenas and to bar key witnesses from testifying where it would take months of court wrangling to force cooperation, the easy solution would be for the House to commence an impeachment inquiry where the rules strongly favor the House members in obtaining pertinent data like the president’s financial records. After all, its only the US national security and the well being of our democracy, at stake.
Meanwhile, as the Democrats in the US House conduct all these hearings, I would like to see them work to insure the integrity of the vote in 2020 where it’s no longer possible for foreign governments like Russia to interfere with our elections, as was the case in 2016. The FBI report does state unequivocally that the Russian government did indeed make a concerted effort to sabotage the 2016 US presidential elections and that Russia has continued with these efforts.
See: US Voting Machines Are Still Vulnerable To Manipulations By Nefarious Actors As In 2016
Here is the rest of the story…
As per the 4/22/2019 New York Times report, “Pelosi Urges Caution on Impeachment as Some Democrats Push to Begin” by Nicholas Fandos:
Excerpts:
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi, confronting a Democratic divide over the findings of the special counsel, urged her caucus on Monday to hold off impeaching President Trump for now, even as she denounced the “highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior” that she said had dishonored his office.”
“Her comments, outlined in a letter to House Democrats on Monday and a subsequent conference call with them, seemed designed to increase support for the investigations already begun, rather than impeachment. But the conference call exposed the persistent divisions that Ms. Pelosi is trying to bridge, as several Democrats questioned the cost of not beginning the impeachment of Donald J. Trump.”
“The release last week of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, threw to Congress the fate of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and Mr. Trump’s efforts to interfere with it. Some House Democrats are convinced that impeachment proceedings would be doomed to fall short of removal from office and therefore would only help the president politically. Others argue that failing to impeach would effectively signal to this president and his successors that serious misdeeds will be tolerated by a legislative branch fearful of political consequence.”
“Ms. Pelosi tried to convince her colleagues that they have tools to hold Mr. Trump to account without impeaching him. Underscoring Ms. Pelosi’s approach, the Democrat-led Judiciary Committee announced as the call began that it had subpoenaed Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel and one of the central figures of Mr. Mueller’s report, to appear at a public hearing in late May. The hearing, the committee’s chairman told colleagues, would be the first in a series of public sessions showcasing possible obstruction of justice, abuses of power and corruption in the Trump administration.”
Link: Pelosi Urges Caution on Impeachment as Some Democrats Push to Begin…
The counterpoint argument…
On April 22, 2019 Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post penned the following analysis, “Democrats must seize and define this moment. Otherwise, Trump will.”
Excerpts:
“The constitutional case for impeaching President Trump was best made two decades ago by one of his most servile Republican enablers, Lindsey O. Graham, now the senior senator from South Carolina:”
“You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body [the Senate] determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role . . . because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”
“The political case for moving deliberately but fearlessly toward impeachment is even clearer: If timorous Democrats do not seize and define this moment, Trump surely will.”
“What just happened is that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III delivered a searing indictment of a president who has no idea what “honor” and “integrity” even mean — a president who lies almost pathologically, who orders subordinates to lie, who has no respect for the rule of law, who welcomed Russian interference in the 2016 election, who clumsily tried to orchestrate a coverup , who tried his best to impede a lawful Justice Department investigation and failed only to the extent that aides ignored his outrageous and improper orders.”
“Anyone who thinks there is a chance that Trump will lick his wounds and move on has not been paying attention. Having escaped criminal charges — because he is a sitting president — Trump will go on the offensive. With the help of Attorney General William P. Barr, whose title really should be Minister of Spin, the president will push to investigate the investigators and sell the bogus counternarrative of an attempted “coup” by politically motivated elements of the “deep state.”
“Here is the important thing: Trump will mount this attack no matter what Democrats do . And strictly as a matter of practical politics, the best defense against Trump has to be a powerful offense.”
“I fail to see the benefit for Democrats, heading into the 2020 election, of being seen as such fraidy-cats that they shirk their constitutional duty. Mueller’s portrait of this president and his administration is devastating. According to Graham’s “honor and integrity” standard — which he laid out in January 1999, when he was one of the House prosecutors for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in the Senate — beginning the process of impeaching Trump, isn’t a close call.”
“It’s also important for Democrats to keep their eyes on the prize. The election is the one guaranteed opportunity to throw Trump and his band of grifters out of the White House.”
“But that task will largely fall to the eventual Democratic nominee, whoever that turns out to be. Presidential contenders should be free to position themselves however they see fit on the impeachment question. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has chosen to single herself out by leading the charge. Others may choose to demur and focus instead on the kitchen-table issues, such as health care, that polls show voters care about.”
“But most Democratic members of Congress are not running for president. Their focus has to be on their constitutional duty — and nowhere in the Constitution does it say “never mind about presidential obstruction of justice or abuse of power if there’s an election next year.”
Link to article: Democrats must seize and define this moment. Otherwise, Trump will…
Gronda Morin 
the longer it takes to start proceedings the less likely the public thinks there is a case to answer.
Hugs
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Dear David,
There’s a political risk in going forward with the impeachment process. But I’m of the school that this is the right step to take, and political considerations should not weigh in this decision making.
The FBI has produced findings where the president has been shown to have committed ‘obstruction of justice’ acts. This is like an indictment. The US House is the only government entity that can hold the president accountable for his misdeeds and its members cannot shirk this duty because it isn’t politically expedient.
There is a plus. Once the articles if impeachment’ are invoked, the House Oversight Committees are granted much more power to collect crucial data like the president’s financial records. Right now the White House is able to resist cooperation to where it will take months in the courts for the US Congress to force this cooperation.
I suspect that these records will prove that he’s a compromised leader because of his financial ties to Russia and Saudi Arabia. This means that any spike in the president’s numbers because the US House Democrats triggered impeachment hearings will be short lived.
Hugs, Gronda
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