On To the Senate

[Valin]

Power Line

John Hinderaker

January 10, 2020

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.

(Snip)

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.