Pelosi reining back efforts to impeach Trump
MANY DEMOCRATS WANT ACTION
Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared Wednesday that President Donald Trump is “engaged in a coverup,” but she tamped down some Democrats’ rush toward an impeachment inquiry, telling lawmakers during a closed meeting to be persistent but patient in their showdown with the White House.
Pelosi and five of her top investigative committee leaders spoke with fellow Democrats after an increasing number called for the beginning of an impeachment inquiry following special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia election meddling and contacts with the Trump campaign.
Those Democrats say the move would not necessarily be aimed at removing the president, but instead to bolster their position in court as Trump has broadly stonewalled their investigations. Some two dozen House Democrats have signed on.
With her leadership team, Pelosi, who has resisted pressure to impeach, pointed rank-and-file Democrats toward the legal battles that she said have already found success in forcing Trump to comply with investigations.
“We do believe it’s important to follow the facts,” Pelosi told reporters afterward. “We believe that no one is above the law, including the president of the United States, and we believe that the president of the United States is engaged in a coverup — in a coverup.”
Trump abruptly quit a meeting with congressional Democrats Wednesday with a flat declaration he would no longer work with them unless they drop their investigations in the aftermath of the Trump-Russia report.
After the truncated meeting with the Democratic leaders, scheduled for a discussion of U.S. infrastructure problems, Trump lashed out at elosi
for her comment earlier in the morning on Capitol Hill that she believed the president engaged in a “cover up” of the Russia probe. The president then strode to the Rose Garden where aides had gathered reporters and TV cameras for his demand that Congress drop its investigations that are increasingly leading to talk of what he called the “i-word” — impeachment.
“I walked into the room and I told Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi I want to do infrastructure,” he said, referring to the top Democratic senator, New York’s Chuck Schumer.
“But you know what, we can’t do it under these circumstances,” Trump said. “So get these phoney investigations over.”
A growing number of Democrats, incensed by former White House counsel Don McGahn’s defiance Tuesday of a House panel’s subpoena for testimony, have confronted Pelosi and pushed her and other leaders to act.
Pelosi has said she believes Trump is “goading” Democrats into impeachment. And Trump appeared to relish the Democratic division in a Wednesday tweet: “The Democrats are getting ZERO work done in Congress.”
Democrats leaving the meeting appeared to be taking Pelosi’s words into consideration. Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen, who called for the impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, said he could see both sides.
Of leaders’ reluctance, Cohen said “it’s a political concern rather than an actual constitutional one.”
Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., freshman from a swing district, wants to let court actions play out a bit, and is undecided on starting an impeachment inquiry.
“I think that we’re seeing the drumbeat moving in that direction,” Hill said. The more Trump “defies us, the more that it’s becoming an inevitability. But I don’t think that the caucus as a whole is there yet.”
Inside the room, others largely backed Pelosi’s approach, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting. Another Democrat in the room said there were no fireworks.
Still, Some Democratic leaders, while backing Pelosi, also signalled that a march to impeachment may become inevitable.
“We are confronting what might be the largest, broadest coverup in American history,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters Tuesday. If a House inquiry “leads to other avenues including impeachment,” the Maryland Democrat said, “so be it.”
But South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, counselled caution just before the meeting. A majority of Democrats would support impeachment, Clyburn said, “just not now.” He told CNN the House should follow a methodical process to get to the facts about Trump’s actions.
Amid the impeachment talk and despite Trump’s pledge to stonewall, there was one rare detente between House Democrats and the administration — House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff postponed a meeting to enforce a subpoena against the Justice Department after the department agreed to turn over a cache of documents related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.