Now that Robert Mueller has spoken publicly about his report on Russian interference on the 2016 election, there can be no doubt that Congress needs to pick up the report and commence impeachment hearings.
Impeachment is a difficult task, made nearly impossible by Mitch McConnell’s assertion that the Senate will not convict Trump no matter what. But, it is important to heed Mueller’s words that “every American” should be alarmed by the report’s findings and their implications.
Mueller did not need to speak in coded language. He was crystal clear that he will not provide Congressional committees any information that has not already been published in the report. The bottom line of Mueller’s investigation is that since Justice Department guidelines forbid the charging of a sitting President, the most the investigators could do was to gather as much evidence as they could. With the implication that in the interest of justice, this evidence would be used by someone with authority to do something about it. That someone is the Congress and they have the Constitutional directive to use Mueller’s evidence and begin impeachment hearings.
Mueller was also clear that if the preponderance of evidence had exonerated Trump, the report would have spelled that out. By repeating this, Mueller made it clear that Trump did break the law, but that it would have been unfair to charge him because Trump would not have had the opportunity to clear his name in a court of law; this, because of the prohibition of charging a sitting President.
But the House of Representatives are not caught in a bind. As presidential hopeful Seth Moulton has put it, Trump needs to be impeached by the house, regardless of the political consequences. The Nancy Pelosi argument, however, is that since the Senate won’t convict, there is no purpose in impeachment. But this is a fallacy. Impeachment should proceed because Trump has clearly committed crimes. Impeachment is not a political choice the House can take. By the same reasoning that Trump is beyond the reach of the courts while he is president, it stands that the alternative is impeachment. It is therefore Congress’s duty to impeach.
Appeasement’s nasty history
Not impeaching Trump would amount to appeasement. Nancy Pelosi is right that impeachment is what Trump wants because it will fire up his base. More than firing up his base with a quashed impeachment, Trump needs the free rein that a remainder of his term without impeachment hearings would afford him. There would be very little limit to his madness. Trump would use the lack of an impeachment as proof that the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt all along.
Nancy Pelosi is not in an enviable position. If she fails to impeach, then Democrats will go into the next election cycle as having gone soft on Trump. Even though less than half of the American population want to see Trump impeached, the headlines from an impeachment trial would sway many more people against Trump. Enough to ensure that he will not get re-elected in 2020. The only way to put the brakes on Trump’s re-election is to publicize his guilt through impeachment.
Robert Mueller stated that it was imperative that the investigation be done while events were fresh in people’s minds and when documents were still available. This is true of impeachment as well. If the Democrats wait until after the 2020 election to impeach Trump, two things will happen: testimony that would by then be 5 years old will not be as compelling; and the American public will have even less of an appetite to impeach Trump, particularly if re-election proves to be a referendum on his guilt.