impeachment INQUIRY: What it means and why the nuance may not matter

Let’s be honest: you really don’t know what is happening with this impeachment inquiry. It’s probably not a term you’ve heard of and, frankly, many people within the Democratic caucus don’t know what is happening according to reports following Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s Tuesday announcement to open a formal impeachment inquiry. I have some knowledge, more perspective, and a little nugget to consider the stakes for what is a notable change in the political landscape.

Let’s cover some civics basics here that matter until they don’t. Impeachment inquiry does NOT equal impeachment. Impeachment does NOT equal kicked out of office. These are all processes that are related to each other, but the triggers are not automatic. At the surface, impeachment simply means that the House of Representatives believes the president is unfit for office and should be removed based on “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” What that last part means, “high crimes and misdemeanors”, is open to interpretation. Some representatives and Democratic candidates for President believe this was the case based on the Muller investigation. Others have not until this recent set of scandalous behavior involving Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

An impeachment inquiry, and this is important to Speaker Pelosi, is simply the investigative process to figure out if, well, “high crimes and misdemeanors” have been committed. It is opening an investigation. Speaker Pelosi stated the six committees investigating Trump since April 2019 (House Judiciary Committee, House Oversight and Reform Committee, Senate Intelligence Committee, House Intelligence Committee, House Financial Services Committee, and House Ways and Means Committee) will continue to do so under this umbrella of “impeachment inquiry.”

If the investigations turn up anything notable, any member of the House of Representatives can introduce an Impeachment Resolution. This goes to the House Judiciary Committee which reviews the accusations and writes the Articles of Impeachment. If a majority of the committee agrees, that motion is sent to the entire House of Representatives to be debated and voted on. If a simple majority of the House votes to impeach the president, those charges go to the Senate. The Senate informs the President and writes the indictment. There is a trial led by the Chief Justice and the Senators are the jurors. Evidence is collected, Senate votes. If 2/3rds of the Senate votes yes, the President is convicted. If not, he is acquitted. We’ve had three impeachment inquiries in US Presidential history: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. Johnson and Clinton were acquitted in the Senate. Nixon was not technically impeached because he resigned before he was impeached.

All of this is to say that starting an impeachment inquiry is a very particular thing with a particular meaning. Some people may ask how this differs from the Congressional investigations that paralleled the Muller investigation. The answer is: well, they don’t really except for those were general investigations into Trump to get answers. This formalizing the investigation for the expressed purpose of impeachment is significantly more specific to the outcome.

And this is where the civics and nuance stop mattering. These processes are political. And for all the tactical games of Pelosi, they may not matter in this political environment. To be clear, Speaker Pelosi has been reluctant to pursue impeachment for any number of good and bad reason. Skepticism about effectiveness, protecting recently elected Democrats in Trump districts, not believing the case was strong enough, and maybe personally disagreeing with the approach. Whatever the case is, she has tried to slow the train on impeachment. Avoiding using the word. Admonishing those who brought it into the consciousness. Even the emphasis today on full on impeachment INQUIRY is to emphasize an investigation, not a full-on partisan war.

But this is wishful thinking in this environment where one side has been building up for the impeachment war for some time and the general public only sees IMPEACHMENT and doesn’t read or care about the “inquiry” part. And that is the risk/criticism of Speaker Pelosi’s left flank: all the nuance and careful approach may be lost once the machinery is kicked into gear. September 24, 2019 is the first step of a rhetorical shift — nothing more or less — with significant ramifications for the orientation of the Democratic party in the mainstream. Even if the actual mechanics of what is happening doesn’t change at all.

Finally, I need to address a theory or question that I frankly hate. It’s the idea that Trump is a diabolical genius. That he is the villain in James Bond movies that has a plan layered into a scheme that is surrounded by a plot encased in a sinister ploy the likes we’ve never seen before and cannot help but falling into as a party or nation. That Trump is a 4-diminsional chess grandmaster when we are all playing checkers. PLEASE STOP DOING THIS!

There is not, was not, nor will there be a master plan. STOP CONFUSING INCOMPETENCE AND RANDOM BEHAVIOR FOR CREATVITY AND VISION! What would the plan be? Take a good economic environment and decide to cover that with behavior that is abhorrent and create public distrust. Then try to keep stirring up mess with Russia to bait the Democrats to impeach. But they didn’t take the bait so let’s survive the obstruction of justice concerns and Muller report and go out of my way to be very suspect with Ukraine by withholding aid, not sharing information with Congress about a whistleblower, and invoke Joe Biden and his son. We will strategically have interviews where we let some information slip out that we did have these conversations but only enough to get the Democrats to impeach and then…continue to not allow a good economic environment led me to victory? Oh, and I’ll start a trade war that disproportionately hurts my base. Yeah, it’s not all that complicated.

Let me ask you something: you remember the government shutdown? The longest shutdown in US history? The thing that was going to tank this administration and we would never forget the undue pain it caused the people? It’s not discussed at all. There were not long-term consequences for that because the news cycle moves fast, political memory has ALWAYS been short, and incompetence breeds a fresh story all the time (NOT A MASTER PLAN).

I bring it up to contrast the take that this will be bad for the Democrats (and why this could’ve happened earlier). Where is the real risk? Politics is partisan so there was already a divide that was going to continue to exist. You do your fact findings before you rush to impeachment — even if people don’t understand the difference. The base is excited and matches the Republican base. And, more than anything else, you finally put some teeth behind the words in holding Trump accountable. Sure, the odds of him leaving office are remarkably small because the Senate is controlled by Republicans. But it became almost impossible to listen to Democrats talk about accountability when administration officials routinely ignored hearing requests, offices refused to turn over information, and no one cared or respected the process.

Many, rightfully in my eyes, argue that the release of the transcript and whistleblower complaint was in response to the impeachment inquiry. That these documents weren’t going to come out without a meaningful stick to get the administrations attention.

No one knows where we go from here but be informed about what is happening, how the specifics will and (likely) won’t play for the narrative, and what is really at stake for all sides. Remember, if the we learned anything from the government shutdown, it’s that this entire thing will probably be forgotten by the first primary in February 2020.