Whether she’s willing to admit it publicly or not, Nancy Pelosi has faced increasing pressure to green-light impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. A growing chorus of Democrats—including several 2020 hopefuls like Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris—and one Republican, Rep. Justin Amash, have demanded hearings at the very least. The House Speaker has her reasons for holding back the tide: the public is split on impeachment, Senate Republicans wouldn’t convict, and the whole endeavor could wind up getting Trump re-elected. But she’s now finding herself in the position of needing to prove, both to the party and the Democratic base, that she still takes the executive overreach and corruption outlined by Robert Mueller seriously.

To that end, Pelosi told top Democrats this week that her vision of accountability for Trump goes well beyond pushing him out of office. “I don’t want to see him impeached,” she told senior lawmakers Tuesday. “I want to see him in prison.” It was, as Politico reported Wednesday, a reflection of her view that the best course of action would be for Democrats to defeat Trump in 2020, and for him to then be prosecuted for his crimes as a private citizen. In true Pelosi fashion, the remark appeared to be a carefully calibrated message—one designed to simultaneously mollify her caucus and make Trump fly off the handle.

She’s done this kind of thing before. Late last month, the California Democrat suggested before a meeting with Trump that he had engaged in “impeachable” conduct. The suggestion seemed to at least temporarily pacify some Democrats, while sending Trump into a blind fury. He stormed out of a scheduled meeting with Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, raged about the Mueller probe and the Democrats in the Rose Garden, and disputed the House Speaker’s ribbing that he’d thrown a tantrum. “I was extremely calm,” the calm president tweeted. “It is all such a lie!”

By engaging Democrats in some winsome day-dreaming about Trump behind bars, Pelosi is likely hoping for similar results: for Democrats to continue investigating Trump and his administration without worrying about the endgame, and for Trump to engage in more self-defeating outbursts. But at least with respect to the former, it’s possible that her tempered antagonism toward the president will be met with diminishing returns among Democrats hungry for more than talk. According to Politico, some senior officials—including Nadler, whose House Judiciary Committee would be responsible for launching impeachment proceedings—expressed frustration in the Tuesday meeting at Pelosi’s wait-and-see approach. Nadler has long appeared to be itching to impeach, particularly as the administration stonewalls his committee’s investigations, but has publicly remained in lockstep with Pelosi. That facade has appeared to fray this week, however, as he ducked questions as to whether or not he and the House Speaker see eye-to-eye on impeachment. “When that decision has to be made, it will be made not by any one individual, it will be made probably by the caucus as a whole,” Nadler said on CNN Wednesday, a non-answer to a question as to whether or not he and Pelosi are “on the same page.” “Certainly Nancy will have the largest single voice in it.”

There are pros and cons to Pelosi’s approach. On the one hand, she’s right that impeachment would likely be divisive, and that the president would take every opportunity to play the victim. On the other hand, Trump is already painting himself as a martyr. And with the aid of strong leadership and moral righteousness, Democrats may be able to build support for their efforts. What’s more, while the image of Trump being led out of Mar-a-Lago in handcuffs is tantalizing, Pelosi probably shouldn’t hold her breath. Sure, Mueller all but suggested the president could’ve been prosecuted had he been a private citizen. But we’re talking about Trump, a man who’s avoided the consequences of his brazen corruption for decades.

For now, Democratic leadership is still on Pelosi’s side. House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings reportedly stood with her during Tuesday’s meeting, and other committee heads like Adam Schiff and Richard Neal suggested that Democrats shouldn’t test the impeachment waters unless they’re prepared to go all the way. But with the growing rebellion in her caucus, she’ll likely face intensifying calls to act, even as she tries to project an image of unity: “I’m not feeling any pressure,” she said Wednesday.

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