On To the Senate

Nancy Pelosi wrote today in a letter to House Democrats that she will finally appoint impeachment managers and send the Democrats’ articles of impeachment to the Senate. Apparently this will happen next week. I never understood why Pelosi delayed sending the articles to the Senate in the first place, so I can’t explain why she has changed her mind now. It seems obvious that the delay of several weeks has implied a loss of both momentum and perception of seriousness, to the extent that anyone ever took the Democrats’ partisan impeachment seriously.

Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, is playing his cards close to his vest. Reportedly the Senate process will begin, like the Clinton impeachment of 1999, with both sides presenting their cases, followed by debate among senators. Only then would a decision be made as to whether and how to call witnesses. My hope is that things never get that far. There is nothing any witness can say about President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine that would raise plausible grounds for impeachment. We know everything we need to know by reading the transcripts of the president’s two conversations with President Zelensky.

In my view, to the extent that President Trump leaned on Ukraine to investigate the corrupt relationship between Burisma and the Bidens–and he leaned very lightly, if at all–that was good, not bad. Corruption in the Obama-Biden administration should be investigated. Burisma’s multi-million dollar bribe to Joe Biden, through his son Hunter–no one ever paid a nickel, let alone millions, for influence with Hunter–is a classic example of the Swamp against which Trump ran for president. Joe Biden shouldn’t be allowed to get away with corruption at this level, even though the prospect of a criminal prosecution is probably remote.

So I would like to see the impeachment proceeding denounced as the partisan charade that it is, and dismissed as soon as possible. Some Republicans like the idea of a prolonged Senate “trial” that would tie up Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and prevent them from campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire. Warren has complained rather bitterly about this, and some speculate that Pelosi is doing the DNC’s bidding by stretching out the process to the disadvantage of her party’s most far-left candidates.

I know nothing about that. Personally, though, I would like to see Warren and Sanders on the campaign trail. Recently there has been a lot of speculation that Sanders could well be the Democrats’ nominee in 2020 unless something happens to derail him. As happened in 2016, with the DNC’s thumb on the scale. I would be fine with the Democrats nominating either Sanders or Warren. Alternatively, experience in this election cycle has been that the more voters see the Democratic candidates, the less they like them. This comes from Tom Bevan, via InstaPundit:

If Liz and Bernie want to hit the campaign trail and drive their poll numbers lower, it is fine by me.

What is sad, however, is not whatever political damage the Democrats may suffer, but rather the profound harm they are inflicting on our country by abusing the House’s constitutional power of impeachment for narrow partisan purposes. For that, Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues should never be forgiven.

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