Democrats’ Impeachment Clock Is Ticking

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By :Andrew Duehren

Mar 5, 2019 8:33 am ET

 

This item first appeared in the Capital Journal newsletter

 

As investigations into President Trump and his associates begin in the House, Democrats may soon find themselves compelled to decide whether to go through with politically risky impeachment proceedings.

 

The House Judiciary Committee, the body where an impeachment inquiry would begin, launched a wide-ranging investigation into possible obstruction of justice, public corruption and abuses of power in the Trump administration on Monday. The Democratic-led panel requested information from 81 entities and individuals, including members of Mr. Trump’s family.

 

Party leadership has assiduously cautioned against moving forward with impeachment before the completion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, which is expected to wrap up soon.

What portion of Mr. Mueller’s findings will become public, though, remains unclear, and a procedural battle with the Department of Justice over the records could potentially stall its release. Preparing for the worst, Democrats have said they are seeking to build a record of information before they decide to move forward with an impeachment inquiry.

 

The clock is ticking. The central risk for the party in committing to an impeachment process is the potential backlash from Mr. Trump and Republican voters. An impeachment inquiry perceived as partisan could provide the president a potent political foil in his re-election effort. The longer Democrats wait and the closer election season looms, the more politically risky impeachment becomes if they ultimately decide to do it.

 

“I think it’s wise to get it over with. I think this could be a very intense summer on that front,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served in Bill Clinton’s White House.

 

Opening a series of inquiries before committing to impeachment provides Democrats with an alternative: unearthing damaging information about the president continuously for the next two years and hurting his re-election chances. But Democrats will still have to grapple with whether they feel they must move forward with impeachment based on the evidence they uncover and political pressure from their liberal base.

 

“What they have to weigh is on the one hand they don’t want to do this because it would be cleaner and easier to mobilize to defeat him in 2020; the flip side is there are other considerations,” Ms. Kamarck said.

 

https://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2019/03/05/democrats-impeachment-clock-is-ticking/