The Reach To Impeach, Con't

Nancy Pelosi is not going to allow impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump anytime soon, and she's not giving an inch on the matter.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi told senior Democrats that she’d like to see President Donald Trump “in prison” as she clashed with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler in a meeting on Tuesday night over whether to launch impeachment proceedings.

Pelosi met with Nadler (D-N.Y.) and several other top Democrats who are aggressively pursuing investigations against the president, according to multiple sources. Nadler and other committee leaders have been embroiled in a behind-the-scenes turf battle for weeks over ownership of the Democrats’ sprawling investigation into Trump.

Nadler pressed Pelosi to allow his committee to launch an impeachment inquiry against Trump — the second such request he’s made in recent weeks only to be rebuffed by the California Democrat and other senior leaders. Pelosi stood firm, reiterating that she isn’t open to the idea of impeaching Trump at this time.

“I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,” Pelosi said, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with the meeting. Instead of impeachment, Pelosi still prefers to see Trump defeated at the ballot box and then prosecuted for his alleged crimes, according to the sources.
They said she was expressing solidarity with pro-impeachment Democrats who want to hold the president accountable while disputing the idea that it is now time to take that step. Pelosi has long argued that certain conditions must be met before Democrats begin impeachment — public support and strong bipartisan backing, neither of which have so far materialized.

Other Democrats said Pelosi’s comment wasn’t that surprising given her previous criticisms of the president, including saying Trump “is engaged in a cover-up,” that his staff and family should stage an intervention and that the president’s actions “are villainous to the Constitution of the United States.”

Ashley Etienne, a Pelosi spokeswoman said Pelosi and the chairmen “had a productive meeting about the state of play with the Mueller report. They agreed to keep all options on the table and continue to move forward with an aggressive hearing and legislative strategy, as early as next week, to address the president’s corruption and abuses of power uncovered in the report.”

Pelosi is counting on the House Democratic hearings this month to generate the kind of public support for impeachment.  FOX News won't cover them at all, of course, and who knows what Trump will do to knock the hearings off the front page?

We may already have the answer to that question.

The United Arab Emirates will present to U.N. Security Council members on Thursday the results of an investigation into attacks targeting four oil tanker vessels off the UAE coast last month, two diplomats said.

The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the briefing was expected to take place at the UAE Mission to the United Nations at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT). One diplomat said Saudi Arabia and Norway were also expected to take part in the briefing.

Abu Dhabi-based television channel Sky News Arabia first reported the briefing.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said on May 29 that the attacks were the work of “naval mines almost certainly from Iran”. Tehran denied the accusations.

The UAE wants a US war with Iran even more than John Bolton's mustache does.  Stay tuned.