The Reach To Impeach, Con't

The Trump regime today made it clear what their strategy is going forward: obstruction of justice and daring Nancy Pelosi to do anything about it.

The White House all but declared war on the House impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, intervening for the first time to block the testimony of a key witness as President Trump signaled his administration would try to starve investigators of more witnesses and documents. 

The decision to block Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, from speaking with investigators for three House committees came just hours before he was to appear on Capitol Hill, provoking an immediate conflict with potentially profound consequences for the inquiry and for the president himself. 

Mr. Trump, defiant as investigators dig further into his efforts to pressure Ukraine to find dirt on his political rivals, declared the inquiry illegitimate in a signal that he plans to stonewall Congress, an act that could itself build the case for charging him in an impeachment proceeding with obstruction. 

“I would love to send Ambassador Sondland, a really good man and great American, to testify,” Mr. Trump wrote on TwitterTuesday morning around the time Mr. Sondland was to appear, “but unfortunately he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court, where Republican’s rights have been taken away.”

Trump openly tweeting that the decision to block Sondland came from himself here.  Again, open obstruction of justice, with a dare to do anything about it.

House Democrats quickly said they would regard the president’s stance as amounting to obstruction. Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the administration’s refusal to allow Mr. Sondland to appear was “strong evidence” of “obstruction of the constitutional functions of Congress, a coequal branch of government.” 

Mr. Schiff told reporters that the State Department was also withholding text messages Mr. Sondland had sent on a private device that were “deeply relevant” to the inquiry. 

“The American people have the right to know if the president is acting in their interests, in the nation’s interests with an eye toward our national security, and not in his narrow personal, political interests,” Mr. Schiff told reporters. “By preventing us from hearing from this witness and obtaining these documents, the president and secretary of state are taking actions that prevent us from getting the facts needed to protect the nation’s security.” 

In a statement, Mr. Schiff and the chairmen of the two other committees leading the investigation said they would promptly issue a subpoena for Mr. Sondland’s testimony and documents. 

The decision to block Mr. Sondland from being interviewed was delivered at the last minute, after the ambassador had already flown to Washington from Europe, and lawmakers had returned from a two-week recess to observe the questioning.

From Trump's cynical, purely transactional viewpoint, it's a good strategy considering that additional impeachment charges won't matter as long as Mitch McConnell is there to simply dismiss the charges in a Senate trial.  The White House is selling the impeachment proceedings as "illegitimate if not illegal" on FOX State TV, and they've reached the point where additional testimony against Trump would be more damaging in the long run than covering it up.

From the Democratic side, this is the rubicon being crossed.  House Democrats have to decide what to do at this point because no further cooperation of any kind will be coming from the executive branch or its agencies.  A lengthy court battle during an election year could allow Trump to run out the clock, because at some point Nancy Pelosi is going to have to make the decision to go forward with articles of impeachment or shelve them.

So far, her response has literally been a sternly-worded letter. 

Now, having said that, Senate Republicans no doubt want those articles as soon as possible so that Mitch and 50 other GOP senators can vote to dismiss the charges as I said, calling them illegitimate.  Plenty of people say Pelosi's response must be drawing up and voting on articles now.  I think that's playing directly into McConnell's hands.

Dismissing the articles as soon as they are sent to the Senate is their best-case scenario if they feel they can get away with it, and McConnell has enough GOP senators to do that right now, especially if they use the "illegitimate" argument as a fig leaf.  The outcry would be massive, but then it becomes taking the matter to SCOTUS and hoping for a 5-4 ruling or better that confirms the Senate can make its own rules regarding a Senate impeachment trial.

And it all ends with a whimper.  That's still where I see all of this going.  We don't even get a Senate trial.

But for Pelosi and the Democrats, the longer things go forward now with Trump's obvious cover-up happening in real time, the worse the numbers get for him.  If support flags enough though, and multiple GOP senators say there has to be a rigorous trial, that starts leading down the path of Trump's removal.  The polls say half the country now wants Trump impeached by the House and removed by the Senate.

So, she has to thread the needle. She has to wait until the cry to remove Trump becomes overwhelming, and this obvious obstruction move will go a long way towards getting us to a maximum for removal.  But if Pelosi times things badly, this all blows up and Trump gets away, possibly to a second term.  We'll see how Dems respond, particularly to witnesses.  Inherent contempt for Sondland, for instance, won't help that much.  Inherent contempt for Mike Pompeo on the other hand, well...

Dems have come this far.  I trust they have the guts to finish it, because they have to or we lose the republic.