The Reach To Impeach, Con't

The Very Serious Washington Pundits™ tell us that super cunning Trump wants to be impeached, a trap that must be avoided because Trump will never be removed from office by the Senate, and loser Democrats will only lose and Trump's popularity will skyrocket in the wake of a failed attempt.

It seems a crazy idea that any president would actually want to be impeached. 

But Donald Trump has so subverted Washington logic with his wild, norm-crushing presidency that there is now a serious conversation -- at least among Democrats -- about whether he views the ultimate constitutional crisis as a weapon in his re-election campaign. 

The possibility is shaping the strategies of Democratic leaders as they weigh the political risks of impeachment and their duty to defend principles of American governance. 

Many Democrats fear that Trump may be laying an impeachment trap that could consume the House majority, distract them from key issues like health care and alienate persuadable voters. 

But it's also possible their leaders could be talking up the idea that Trump wants to be impeached as a way to quell discontent among some base activists that Washington Democrats are not doing more to constrain the President.  

Now, imagine that those are the only two possibilities, one, that Democrats have already inevitably lost the impeachment battle, and impeachment leads to Trump's master stroke of a 2020 government completely controlled by Republicans eager to exterminate all Dems, or two, that everything in scenario one is correct so that Democrats are using this as the excuse not to impeach in order to save the country.

The question is not going away, given Trump's staggeringly broad effort to subvert investigations of his presidency, campaign, personal finances and business career. 

"The President is almost self-impeaching because he is, every day, demonstrating more obstruction of justice and disrespect for Congress' legitimate role to subpoena," Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday. 

One of Pelosi's top lieutenants, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, is, like Pelosi, wary of the risks of impeachment. But he acknowledged Trump's own actions might be propelling Washington toward a precipice. 

"Part of our reluctance is we are already a bitterly divided country and an impeachment process will divide us further," Schiff said Sunday on "This Week" on ABC News. "He certainly seems to be trying and maybe this is his perverse way of dividing us more ... He thinks that's to his political advantage, but it's certainly not to the country's advantage." 

Trump dodged a question in a Politico interview last week about whether he wanted to be impeached. And he argues that if anyone committed crimes over the 2016 campaign, it is Democrats, not him. 

At other times he has, however, seemed to be testing out arguments that he could use in his defense in an impeachment showdown. 

"It's hard to impeach somebody who hasn't done anything wrong and who's created the greatest economy in the history of our country," Trump told Reuters in an interview in December.

Judging by this article, Democrats have already surrendered.

If that's true, we're done as a country.