The Economist - USA (2019-09-28)

(Antfer) #1

20 TheEconomistSeptember 28th 2019


1

T


he peopleof south-western Connecti-
cut are not happy with what they are
hearing about President Donald Trump.
Jim Himes, who has represented the state’s
fourth congressional district since 2008,
told The Economiston September 23rd that
he had “felt...intensely from my constitu-
ents this weekend” a sense of “outrage”
over the administration’s “quite clearly
lawless behaviour.”
Mr Himes came to support the im-
peachment of President Donald Trump
partly because such constituents encour-
aged him to. Until recently, though, he
thought it was unlikely to come to pass.
Away from Connecticut’s affluent suburbs,
the idea has always been a lot less popular.
Mr Himes’s campaign manager knocked on
hundreds of Democrats’ front doors when
trying to win the recent special election in
North Carolina’s Ninth District: “They all
said to slow down on hating Trump.” Hard-
ly any of the 31 congressional Democrats
who represent districts Mr Trump won in

the elections of 2016 favoured the idea.
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House,
understood their concerns. The majority
the Democrats won in last year’s mid-term
elections meant that the they could, in
principle, draw up articles of impeachment
against Mr Trump. But he could only be
found guilty if 20 or more Republican sena-
tors voted to uphold them. That is remark-
ably unlikely. And the pursuit of that un-
likelihood might easily backfire; a failed
bid to oust Mr Trump with accusations that
would surely be branded fake news might
energise his support and engender a broad-
er sympathy. When the tribunes of the
party’s left wing talked of impeachment,
Ms Pelosi dismissed the idea.
The party’s position changed more-or-
less overnight. “I think you’ll see some of
those [swing-district Democrats] pull the
trigger,” Mr Himes predicted on Monday
evening. By the next day, they had. Tuesday
morning’s Washington Post carried an
op-ed by seven freshman Democrats from

swing districts, all but one of them with a
background in the armed forces or the in-
telligence services. They wrote that Mr
Trump’s “flagrant disregard for the law can-
not stand,” and that it was thus time “to
consider the use of all congressional au-
thorities available to us, including the
power of ‘inherent contempt’ and im-
peachment hearings.”
Ms Pelosi seeks to stand where she be-
lieves her caucus’s centre to be: it is one of
her strengths. With that op-ed, the centre
moved, and the same afternoon Ms Pelosi
announced that the House would begin a
formal impeachment inquiry. “No one is
above the law,” she said.
By the time The Economist went to press,
it appeared that a majority of the
House—219 Democrats and Justin Amash,
elected as a Republican and sitting as an in-
dependent, supported impeachment pro-
ceedings (see chart on next page).
Over the next two months—Democrats
want to finish the process by year’s end—
six House committees will hold hearings
into the president. They will send what
they see as their best cases for impeach-
ment to the Judiciary Committee, which
will vote on whether to bring one or more
articles of impeachment to the floor for a
vote. If a simple majority votes in favour,
the president is impeached, which is anal-
ogous to being indicted. He then stands
trial in the Senate, where he can be found

Telephone justice


WASHINGTON, DC
The Democrats’ move toward impeachment marks a dangerous shift in America’s
political landscape

Briefing Impeachment

Free download pdf