From Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times via Press of Atlantic City
WASHINGTON — Last week, no fewer than six committees of the House of Representatives were investigating potential grounds for impeaching President Donald Trump.
They don’t use the word “impeachment.” Their instructions from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are to describe their work in narrower, less inflammatory terms.
But the question is never far away: Does Trump’s record of norm-busting, rule-bending and apparent law-breaking, from conflicts of interest to murky connections with foreign governments, justify removing him from office?
“We have to see what the facts are,” Pelosi said recently. “We shouldn’t be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn’t avoid impeachment for a political reason. So we’ll just have to see how it comes.”
Call this phase “pre-impeachment.” Pelosi and her committee chairs, all Democrats, are doing what they need to do to make impeaching Trump possible.
The speaker and her allies describe a two-step process before any impeachment can succeed.
Step one is gathering conclusive evidence of misconduct — high crimes and misdemeanors, the Constitution says — serious enough to warrant articles of impeachment. That may be the easy part.
Step two would be persuading the public that impeachment is warranted and building bipartisan support in Congress, especially in the Republican-controlled Senate. That’s tougher.
If only one party is involved, Democrats risk the kind of disaster Republicans faced when they impeached President Bill Clinton in 1998, saw him acquitted in the Senate, and watched their own popularity plummet.
The House Democrats have held their majority for little more than a month, so step one is only beginning — in Congress, at least. But they lost no time in getting underway.
It will be hard to keep the probes separate. A Pelosi aide convenes a weekly meeting just to keep track of the overlapping lines of inquiry.
The House Intelligence Committee, under Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., will investigate whether Trump or his family have been compromised by Russia, Saudi Arabia or other foreign actors.
Financial Affairs, under Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., will help Schiff look into potential money laundering by the president’s family-run company.
Judiciary, under Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., is probing possible violations of campaign laws. Oversight, under Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., is investigating foreign payments to Trump’s businesses.
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