Al Green

As the House Judiciary Committee debated the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday again declined to explain to reporters why certain charges were left out of the articles.

On Tuesday she was dismissive when asked why Democrats did not include obstruction of justice as outlined in the special counsel report on its investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Trump’s campaign. During her weekly news conference on Thursday, it was the exclusion of bribery she didn’t want to explain.

The House Judiciary Committee began marking up articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening and is expected to vote on them Thursday.

In his opening statement, Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler addressed why impeaching Trump was warranted when a presidential election is less than a year away. 

The four constitutional experts called to testify Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee on the impeachment into President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine largely played the roles they were asked to play at the televised hearing.

The three Democrat-called witnesses agreed Trump’s behavior warrants impeachment.

OPINION — Twenty years ago, after the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the departure of Speaker Newt Gingrich, I left my post as the speaker’s director of planning and opted to go into the business of survey research. My motivation wasn’t a great desire to enter the world of campaign politics. I was more policy animal than political consultant.

But I had learned a hard lesson during the months Republicans decided to impeach a sitting president. I learned that when either party tries to enact a major public policy initiative, which is what impeachment is, it takes more than partisan support and bravado to bring home the prize. It takes broad public support, a national consensus that the action, especially one as serious as overturning the results of an election, is truly in the best interests of the country.

It’s not difficult to find a former presidential candidate who swore off running for Senate and then changed his mind. Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper did in August. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio did it too, in 2016.

Just don’t expect former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke to join them after ending his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s 2020 reelection campaign is looking to cash in this week on the recent wave of Democratic support for an impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump by selling T-shirts with the slogan “Impeach the mf.”

The shirts cost $29, come in a variety of styles with a black or white backdrop, and take one to two weeks to ship to their destination.

ANALYSIS | Several House Democrats’ positions on impeachment have shifted in the past 24 hours, but some have moved farther than others, leaving confusion about the caucus’ next steps.

Allegations that President Donald Trump withheld U.S. aid to Ukraine to spur the country to investigate a potential 2020 rival, Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, has given House Democrats’ flailing impeachment investigation new life. 

House Democrats are struggling to speak with one voice about impeachment, as members returned to Washington this week with mixed messages about whether the Judiciary Committee is already engaged in an impeachment inquiry and where that investigation is headed. 

Judiciary Democrats almost uniformly agree that their panel’s expanding investigation into President Donald Trump’s alleged crimes and abuse of power is an impeachment inquiry. Any disagreement about that definition that may exist among those two dozen members will likely be brought to light Thursday as the committee marks up a resolution defining procedures for its investigation.

Democrats back in their districts for a six-week-long congressional recess have walked a tightrope on whether to impeach the president, according to local reports. 

The impeachment caucus now includes half of the Democratic members of the House.

Despite all the anticipation ahead of former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s testimony, were any lawmakers really going to change their minds?