The White House has confirmed that it will send a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanding that the House hold an immediate impeachment vote.
The strategy is obvious: hold Democrats’ feet to the fire and expose their effort to impeach Trump as blatantly partisan.
The letter will will echo the letter sent by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
READ⬇️ I’ve written to Speaker Pelosi to halt the impeachment inquiry until we can receive public answers to the following questions. Given the enormity of the question at hand—impeaching a duly elected president—the American public deserves fairness and transparency. pic.twitter.com/EFKOghyf9w
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) October 3, 2019
“Unfortunately, you have given no clear indication as to how your impeachment inquiry will proceed — including whether key historical precedents or basic standards of due process will be observed,” McCarthy wrote. “In addition, the swiftness and recklessness with which you have proceeded [have] already resulted in committee chairs attempting to limit minority participation in scheduled interviews, calling into question the integrity of such an inquiry.”
McCarthy referred to reports that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was limiting Republicans’ ability to ask questions during Thursday’s testimony by former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, who resigned last week.
Pelosi shot back at McCarthy, saying that “existing rules of the House provide House committees with full authority to conduct investigations for all matters under their jurisdiction.”
She later tweeted: “The fact that the [House Republicans’] loyalty is to Trump and not to the Constitution is not going to slow down or impair our ability to keep the republic of our founders envisioned.”
The White House will also say that they won’t comply with the Democrats’ investigation “because Pelosi hasn’t codified the probe with a formal vote on the House floor.” Indeed, if the Democrats take the White House to court because they won’t comply with subpoenas, they are going to have a difficult time convincing a federal judge they aren’t violating their own procedures.
The Democrats will rue the day they were too chicken to hold a floor vote to approve the impeachment inquiry.
The reasoning behind the White House letter is pure politics. Pelosi would never hold a vote and everyone knows it. And yet, Democrats have been running around the country screaming that Trump is guilty. If they’re so sure of that, why not have a vote now and send the matter to the Senate for trial?
Pelosi probably couldn’t even guarantee an impeachment vote’s success. There are still a lot of nervous Dems who represent Trump districts and whose constituents might not look favorably on impeachment. And there is zero pressure on Republicans from their own voters to throw Trump out. This is a recipe for Democratic disaster and with Trump putting Biden in his crosshairs, it’s doubtful momentum will ever build enough to convict Trump in the Senate.
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