Campaign to impeach Trump

Billionaire activist wants Colorado on board, but are state’s Democrats willing?

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer swept into Denver this week with a simple and provocative message: It’s time to impeach President Donald Trump, and any Democrat not on board better wise up.

The pitch and the pitchman were likely to receive a warm welcome from hundreds of people expected at a town hall Steyer hosted Wednesday night at Mile High Station, one of about 30 stops on a nationwide tour that started in March.

“In a political maelstrom — which this is — we view this as a gigantic fight for the soul of America, a definitional fight for what it means to be an American,” he said in an interview with The Denver Post.

But the unity Steyer was expecting at his own event belies a deep divide among Colorado liberals on how the left should approach impeachment — evident in the fact that some anti-establishment candidates have begun using Trump’s ouster as a wedge issue in Democratic primaries.

A few hours beforehand, Steyer highlighted the importance of removing Trump from office before the president’s four-year term ends in January 2021.

“We think this is the biggest issue because it touches every single other issue,” he said.

Steyer, who made his fortune as a hedge fund manager, has spent $40 million since October toward that goal — an investment that includes a pro-impeachment commercial that’s running across the country this week.

The anti-Trump campaign is the latest example of Steyer’s efforts to influence Colorado politics. Notably in 2014, a political group he founded spent about $7.4 million in a failed attempt to defeat Republican Cory Gardner in his race against then-U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., according to election watchdogs at the Center for Responsive Politics.

That spending, and other work he has done on environmental issues, has earned Steyer some measure of goodwill among Colorado liberals — although his latest effort is running into resistance.

Part of the reason is the veiled threats he’s made about Democrats who aren’t pushing for Trump’s immediate removal.

In announcing Wednesday’s event, Steyer highlighted a December vote in the U.S. House that called for the president’s impeachment — name-checking two Colorado Democrats, Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter, who didn’t support the move. It failed, 364-58.

“Those who condemn Trump but do not back their words with

action are enabling the damage he is inflicting on our country,” Steyer said in that statement. “The people of Colorado deserve elected leaders who refuse to back down on our shared principles.”

Asked whether he planned to support candidates financially who took his side in Democratic primaries, Steyer said that wasn’t his goal.

“We work for Democrats” and not against them, he said.

But, he added, the impeachment issue can’t be ignored.

“I understand that there are lots of people who are worried about talking about it,” he said. “But people were worried about talking about gun control before (the) Parkland (school shooting in Florida).”

Neither DeGette nor Perlmutter appeared especially worried or moved by his campaign.

Both said Congress shouldn’t act on impeachment until former FBI director Robert Mueller finishes his investigation into Russia, Trump’s network and the 2016 election.

“We may well have findings of obstruction of justice or even worse, and at that point Congress will need to look and see what the evidence shows,” DeGette said.

And if impeachment is the goal, she added, it is imperative to garner bipartisan support, as it requires the support of two-thirds of the Senate, now controlled by Republicans.

Perlmutter echoed that thinking and hinted that Steyer may have other motivations in pushing impeachment.

“I think he’s doing what he thinks is right and appropriate, and I think he’s also trying to distinguish himself among a number of Democratic presidential candidates,” Perlmutter said.

(Steyer waved away the 2020 suggestion in his interview with The Post).

One recent poll, however, found that there are still reservations about impeachment, even among Democrats.

A national survey done in April by Marist Poll, NPR and the PBS NewsHour showed that 47 percent of the voters it contacted definitely would vote against a candidate who wants to impeach Trump, a notch higher than the 42 percent who definitely would vote for such a candidate.

Among Democrats, 18 percent would vote against a pro-impeachment candidate, and 70 percent would vote in favor of him or her.

In Colorado, Democrat Levi Tillemann has tried to use impeachment as a wedge between his campaign and that of primary rival Jason Crow; the winner will face U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora.

“It really should be a litmus test for Democrats,” Tillemann said. “Donald Trump is a criminal.”

Crow, who has the backing of national Democrats, was less sure.

“It’s not something at the top of our agenda,” he said, adding that he didn’t know whether he would have voted in favor of the December impeachment effort in the House.

A Democratic challenger to DeGette — Colorado’s longest-serving federal lawmaker — is taking a tack similar to Tillemann’s.

Saira Rao said it was “intellectually dishonest” for Democratic lawmakers to criticize Trump but not initiate impeachment proceedings.

“They’re tweeting and waiting,” she said.

One Colorado race where the issue has barely come up is the crowded Democratic fight for governor.

While the omission makes sense to a large degree — as the state’s next governor won’t have a say on impeachment — one of the top candidates, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, was the only Colorado Democrat in the House to back the effort.

“Congress needs to do its job and hold impeachment hearings,” he said.

Craig Hughes — a political consultant who worked with Steyer’s team in 2014 and is advising Mike Johnston, one of Polis’ Democratic opponents this year — said part of the reason the impeachment issue hasn’t gotten more prominence is because many Democratic voters still haven’t figured out their own positions.

“Voters are coming to grips with their own understanding of it,” he said. “There’s a lot of anticipation for what Mueller discovers and what case he lays out.”

Katie Farnan, an organizer with the Colorado progressive group Indivisible Front Range Resistance, said she’s knocked on hundreds of doors as a volunteer and found more interest in issues such as health care, immigration and gun violence.

“As much as there is antiTrump sentiment, it doesn’t begin and end with impeachment,” she said. “It’s much more about the issues that matter more directly to people.”

But Darlene Jones, who founded another Colorado group — The Resistance 5280 — said she and others are getting impatient for Democrats in Washington to act.

“A lot of people are getting tired because it seems as if Congress is not listening,” she said. “They are more worried about themselves.”

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