Tag: John Yarmuth

Some saw a dereliction of Constitutional duty, summed up by Rep. John Yarmuth’s (D-Ky.) claim that the failure to use impeachment against a president this lawless renders the constitutional tool “meaningless.” On a recent Sunday show, ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos incredulously asked if the decision meant impeachment was “simply political?” As though there would be something wrong if it were. It ignores the way our Constitutional framers ingrained politics into the very design of impeachment and intended the choice whether or not to impeach to require many extra-legal considerations. Once given to politicians, Hamilton acknowledged that political considerations would come into play including “animosities, partialities, influence, and interest.” Hence the two-thirds threshold for removal to ensure that this powerful tool was only deployed in times of real and overriding consensus – not as just another tool in the legislative back and forth. So it’s entirely unsurprising and appropriate that Speaker Pelosi appears to be weighing politics, including whether pursuing impeachment will expose Democrats to charges of partisanship or make them seem out of touch with the people’s more practical needs; whether enough senators will vote for removal of the president to make the impeachment effort have a concrete impact or what harm would flow from an impeachment that died in the Senate; and whether the news media will meaningfully cover any other issue once while the possibility of impeachment hangs in the air. If those are some of her questions, it’s hard to argue with her answers. And on the subject of cable news’s impeachment obsession, the one-day wall-to-wall coverage of Pelosi’s statement about not impeaching kind of proves the point. In my view, the public record is replete with facts that strongly suggest the president has committed numerous impeachable offenses. Nor is there any inkling that even one Republican senator would break with the president, let alone the twenty needed to remove the president from office. Of course, they should continue to investigate and hold the president and the rest of the administration accountable for their many misdeeds and breaches of the public trust without the oxygen-sucking shadow of impeachment hanging over every hearing. And if those hearings – or the report to Congress on the results of the Mueller investigation - do produce the kind of evidence that shifts public opinion and Senate votes, Speaker Pelosi can revisit this issue.

Some saw a dereliction of Constitutional duty, summed up by Rep. John Yarmuth’s (D-Ky.) claim that the failure to use impeachment against a president this lawless renders the constitutional tool “meaningless.” On a recent Sunday show, ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos incredulously asked if the decision meant impeachment was “simply political?” As though there would be something wrong if it were. It ignores the way our Constitutional framers ingrained politics into the very design of impeachment and intended the choice whether or not to impeach to require many extra-legal considerations. Once given to politicians, Hamilton acknowledged that political considerations would come into play including “animosities, partialities, influence, and interest.” Hence the two-thirds threshold for removal to ensure that this powerful tool was only deployed in times of real and overriding consensus – not as just another tool in the legislative back and forth. So it’s entirely unsurprising and appropriate that Speaker Pelosi appears to be weighing politics, including whether pursuing impeachment will expose Democrats to charges of partisanship or make them seem out of touch with the people’s more practical needs; whether enough senators will vote for removal of the president to make the impeachment effort have a concrete impact or what harm would flow from an impeachment that died in the Senate; and whether the news media will meaningfully cover any other issue once while the possibility of impeachment hangs in the air. If those are some of her questions, it’s hard to argue with her answers. And on the subject of cable news’s impeachment obsession, the one-day wall-to-wall coverage of Pelosi’s statement about not impeaching kind of proves the point. In my view, the public record is replete with facts that strongly suggest the president has committed numerous impeachable offenses. Nor is there any inkling that even one Republican senator would break with the president, let alone the twenty needed to remove the president from office. Of course, they should continue to investigate and hold the president and the rest of the administration accountable for their many misdeeds and breaches of the public trust without the oxygen-sucking shadow of impeachment hanging over every hearing. And if those hearings – or the report to Congress on the results of the Mueller investigation - do produce the kind of evidence that shifts public opinion and Senate votes, Speaker Pelosi can revisit this issue.