Manning the (party) lines
Lawmakers cling to party lines, look to Senate trial
From the start of the impeachment inquiry, President Donald Trump has framed it as an attempt by Democrats to undo the 2016 election.
Now, with a vote likely days away, Democrats are defending the need for impeachment, as seems likely in the House, as Republicans who are expected to reject it after a trial in the Senate condemn the process.
House leaders defending the inquiry say Trump has endangered the election process and assert that he would continue next year if not halted.
Presidential allies are advising a short trial, without calling the witnesses Trump reportedly thinks could clear him.
– As Washington braces for this week’s expected vote on impeaching President Donald Trump, partisan battle lines hardened Sunday, with Democrats defending impeachment even if Trump isn’t removed from office and Republicans denouncing the integrity of the constitutional process.
The Democrat-controlled House planned to vote Wednesday on two articles of impeachment against the Republican president, and the decision whether to make Trump the third U.S. president to be impeached was expected to play out along party lines. There is some debate between the White House and GOP-run Senate about the contours of the Senate trial anticipated in January, but there seems little doubt the Senate would acquit Trump.
But a seemingly predetermined result has not convinced Democrats that their impeachment effort, which was prompted by Trump’s push to have Ukraine investigate a Trump political foe, was in vain. Framing the matter as a national security issue, the chairman of the House committee that led the investigation insisted it was “not a failure in the sense of our constitutional duty in the House.”
“This misconduct goes on, the threat to our election integrity coming up goes on,” said Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who heads the House Intelligence Committee. “It’s a clear and present danger, I think, to our democracy, and not something that we can turn away from simply because the Republicans in the House refuse to do their duty, and continuing to put the person of the president above their personal obligation.”
Democrats expect support for impeachment from all but a few of their members; no Republicans are expected to join them.
From the beginning of the inquiry, Trump has tried to cast it as a purely political effort by Democrats to undo the result of the 2016 election.
Trump’s approval ratings have remained relatively unchanged during the hearings, and his fellow Republicans have tried to use the proceedings for a political edge, targeting more than 30 House Democrats who represent disWASHINGTON tricts Trump captured three years ago against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
One of those, freshman Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, was expected to announce this week that he is changing party affiliations and becoming a Republican. Van Drew had not announced support for impeachment and was polling poorly in his district, according to Democrats.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which last week approved the impeachment charges, said Van Drew was “reacting to his public polling that shows he can’t get renominated.” Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., stressed that Democrats were not viewing impeachment as political.
“We should not be looking at those things,” he said. “This is the defense of our democracy.”