Conservative: Democrats’ Undo-2016 Obsession

National Review’s Kevin Williamson doesn’t think much of President Trump, but acknowledges that Trump was “legitimately elected.” The many Democrats who don’t have been demanding Trump’s impeachment “over this or that real or imagined offense every few weeks.” It’s “Red Queen politics: sentence first, trial later.” And while the Ukraine story has triggered “renewed enthusiasm for impeachment,” the Dems’ case “would be a great deal more persuasive if it were not No. 6,782 in a series.” Recall that before Ukraine, it was “favor-seekers” who “book rooms in hotels” with Trump’s name on them. Before that, his Twitter habits, etc. Democrats decided to try to impeach Trump in “December 2016 — because he won. There’s no point pretending otherwise.”



From the left: Impeachment Bid Will Backfire

Democrats’ decision to pursue an impeachment inquiry against Trump puts them in a situation that is “nothing short of tragic,” bewails Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti at the Guardian, citing similar history in Italy. “Trump may have abused his powers in a variety of ways” that are “becoming increasingly hard to ignore,” but “the legal drama that is now set to unfold will most likely harm Democrats,” because it will undermine their momentum on “substantive” policy issues. “If that happens, the US may at most get rid of Trump himself, but wouldn’t necessarily overcome the broader problem of Trump-ism as a political phenomenon.”

Literary take: Pelosi’s ‘Pickwick Papers’ Problem

In Dickens’ “The Pickwick Papers,” landlady Mrs. Bardell “willfully misconstrues some innocuous comments,” recalls the Spectator USA’s Roger Kimball: She reads a marriage proposal into Pickwick’s request for “chops and tomato sauce,” then sues him for breach of promise. “Much hilarity, and not inconsiderable inconvenience, ensues,” but Pickwick prevails — and there’s a lesson in that for Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Like Mrs. Bardell, Democrats “are pretending to see all manner of nefarious things” in Trump’s comments to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about investigating Joe Biden, but “it’s all chops and tomato sauce.” The comments are perfectly “anodyne,” yet that hasn’t stopped “the anti-Trump sorority” from launching into “mad impeachment hysteria.” It won’t “succeed in damaging Trump’s chances,” Kimball asserts. “It will, however, destroy Joe Biden.”

Legal view: The Strategy Behind the ‘Inquiry’

It “seems impossible” for Democrats to persuade the constitutionally required two-thirds of the Senate needed to convict and expel the president, notes Adam Mill at The Federalist. So what are House Democrats thinking? Under an “impeachment inquiry,” the House may convince the courts that lawmakers have legitimate basis for requesting a vast array of White House documents. “Democrats want to force the president into defying a court order upholding” such a request, and that would justify “a full-blown impeachment proceeding.” Fact is, “the strategy of declaring an ‘impeachment inquiry’ actually has little or nothing to do with a serious effort to put a case in front of the Senate based upon existing wrongdoing,” and “the absence of a declaration by the full House” proves that.

From the right: Transcript Vindicates Trump

Turns out Trump was “telling the truth” about that July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,” the Wall Street Journal editorial board contends. It was a conversation that “was largely routine policy” — so “good luck” to Democrats trying to persuade “Americans that this is an impeachable offense.” The five-page transcript of the call, released by the White House Wednesday, does show Trump asking Zelensky to look into “2016 election meddling” as a favor, “but there is nothing wrong with asking a foreign head of state to investigate meddling in US elections.” And it was Zelenksy who brought up Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his repeated requests for Ukraine to investigate “Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s activities” there. Considering this phone call as grounds for impeachment is “thin gruel,” writes the board. And it “will do far more harm to American democracy than Mr. Trump’s bad judgment.”

—Compiled by Karl Salzmann & Elisha Maldonado