Meanwhile, Back In The House...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have gone silent as Trump has rampaged across the executive branch claiming heads, and it doesn't look like they're going to do much of anything heading into election season.

The change in posture is an acknowledgment, House Democrats say, that in a world where Senate Republicans are bear-hugging Trump, and the courts are declining to operate at the speed of the congressional calendar, there are very few options that a single chamber of Congress can pursue short of withholding funds for agencies like the Justice Department — particularly when impeachment is no longer in their election-year arsenal.
"There is nothing that Donald Trump can do that would cause [Senate Republicans] to convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who serves on the House Judiciary Committee. "So that has caused everybody in the House to take a deep breath and figure out what our next steps are."

"That leaves us legislative and political answers," Raskin added.

In other words, the end of the impeachment process has become the advent of a new, narrower focus on what Democrats say is a crucial theme revealed by their efforts: Trump's indifference to, or even encouragement of, foreign interference in the 2020 election. It's a throughline, they say, of Trump's behavior toward Russia, his treatment of Ukraine and his public comments on whether he would reject foreign help in future elections.

Now, rather than revive the smashmouth impeachment approach that they adopted throughout the fall and winter, Democrats say they intend to use their investigative weapons to highlight these election security themes and keep pressure on Republicans who chided Trump for his behavior in Ukraine but ultimately acquitted him for it.

"I would argue that impeachment actually served its purpose. It highlighted for people what we're dealing with here and what the stakes are," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). "I would say it set the table for people to take a good hard look at what I think impeachment helped to remind us of, what a threat that represents, and conveniently for us his behavior subsequently has only made our case for us."

Democrats are pondering whether to pass new election security measures, putting them in the Senate's court as the primary gets underway. And they're planning to drive a consistent election security message as the nation's focus shifts toward the November election.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced a March 10 intelligence community briefing for lawmakers, and she's slammed Trump for what she says is politicizing the intelligence community, in part by installing Richard Grenell, a loyalist ambassador, as the acting director of national intelligence. News reports that Russia is already interfering in the upcoming election have returned the issue to the fore.

Separately, Democrats on Friday dusted off their Trump oversight tools and took the first steps to confront the president's campaign of post-acquittal retribution. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) requested testimony from a slew of high-profile Justice Department officials about political interference in criminal cases — including four career prosecutors who quit the case of longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone earlier this month after the president intervened in his sentencing. 

Here's what's going to happen:  The House will pass another round of election security measures and the Senate will ignore them.  Jerry Nadler will subpoena Justice Department prosecutors involved in Trump crony cases and the White House will block testimony claiming executive privilege of people who have never worked in the actual White House.  Trump has basically fired everyone who testified in the impeachment hearings.  Nobody else will voluntarily come forward.  The courts will offer no relief.

Democrats will fret and do nothing.

They especially won't turn to inherent contempt of executive officers.

Maybe things will heat up after July and the Democratic nominee is official, but I doubt it.

And remember, the COVID-19 virus means all future bets are off.