The Erickson Report, Page 1: Listen Up! on impeachment

The Erickson Report, Page 1: Listen Up! on impeachment

So - I go away on vacation for a couple of weeks and the domestic political world explodes.

I'm not even going to try to talk about impeachment news because it would likely be outdated by the time I finish recording this, much less by the time you see or read it. So instead I'm going to make some broad comments.

I'll start by addressing the issue of Nancy Pelosi, who all through the spring and summer and into the fall was against impeachment.

Against it because her only - okay, her primary - concern is electing Democrats to the House and she was afraid that pursuing impeachment will hurt the party's chances in the 2020 Congressional elections, particularly the chances of those "vulnerable" incumbents, those Democrats from relatively moderate or conservative districts, where, it's thought, impeachment will get the right wing all hot and bothered and turning out in droves. chances. That's why she was against it.

It had nothing to do with Tweetie-pie "not being worth it," as she said at one point; even less did it have anything to do with the notion that he would "self-impeach," whatever the hell that wqas supposed to mean. It was strictly a political calculation about 2020.

Now that she has embraced the idea, she is being praised by some on the left as some sort of brilliant strategist who was instead just wait for the precise right moment to strike.

That is just nonsense. Nancy Pelosi is still against impeachment because she still has the same concerns about 2020.

But by late May, over half of the entire House, which of course meant most of the Democrats, wanted to open an impeachment inquiry. By the end of September, 90% of House Dems openly supported doing so.

Nancy Pelosi's caucus was running away from her and major committee chairs such as Adam Schiff at Intelligence, Elijah Cummings at Oversight, and Jerry Nadler at Judiciary seemed to be moving on their own, creating what amounted to an impeachment inquiry, just without the official designation. Endorsing impeachment was the only way Pelosi could reassert some control.

On that score, it's notable, I think, that in endorsing an inquiry, she insists on it being limited to one issue, to focus solely on the Ukraine business.

Which I do not want to minimize: In addition to being a remarkable abuse of power and a betrayal of the public trust - using his position as president and let's not forget taxpayer money to pressure a foreign government to dig up some dirt on a potential political opponent, that is, for his own personal benefit - the fact that it was tied to Congressionally-approved military aid or future sales to Ukraine (oh no, not explicitly, there was no specific quid pro quo, like there ever is) marks it as at the very least a form of extortion. Do you imagine that President Zelensky didn't know that the aid had been held up for months for no apparent reason; do you imagine that when Tweetie-pie said "we want you to do us a favor, though" that Zelensky didn't get the meaning? The conversation played out like someone with a bent nose doing their best Marlon Brando impression and saying "Nice military aid package ya got there. Would be a shame if something happened to it. By the way, on this other matter, you can do me a favor...."

In fact, the call and what surrounded it could involve four separate felonies: illegally soliciting campaign help from a foreign government, bribery, misappropriation, and conspiracy.

But getting back to Pelosi, the fact remains that, again, she is still unhappy with the whole business, she has the same concerns she did before. And limiting the inquiry to a single issue, particularly an easily understood one, is the best way to control that inquiry and get it over with so fast that it, the idea is, won't be an issue in 2020 or at least not as big an issue as it would otherwise be.

But the hard fact is, we should not, we must not, let this be limited to a single incident, a single issue, a single case. There is so much more that should be addressed.

The fact is, if we ignore these other issues, it means we are saying that obstructing justice, ignoring the emoluments clause and openly profiting from the office, breaking campaign finance laws, abusing the classification system for personal gain, undermining constitutional government and corrupting the political process, colluding with a foreign government to influence a national election, ignoring subpoenas, refusing to obey laws even if the plain black letter of the law says otherwise, subverting the very rule of law by turning the Attorney General into his personal lawyer, subverting free speech by encouraging violence against protestors; subverting the free press with lies about "fake news" and declaring his own twitter feed the only source of truth, engaging in witness tampering and now witness intimidation, suggesting whistleblowers should be executed and members of Congress arrested for treason, even refusing to recognize Congress as a co-equal branch of government - if that is not part of impeachment, we are saying that none of it is important enough to address.

In the very first edition of The Erickson Report, back in May, I said we can't not impeach, that even if we thought there was no chance in the Senate, we had to throw down a marker saying "this is not acceptable."

That remains true. And as significant as that phone call to Ukraine is, it remains true for more than that. We cannot not impeach on more.