House Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke a few Democratic hearts during a Q&A with the Washington Post Magazine on Monday when Ms Pelosi said in definitive terms that she does not support pursuing impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Ms Pelosi, like many Democrats in leadership, has been reluctant to hop on the impeachment bandwagon and crank it into top gear because she sees a far easier path to the same outcome in beating Trump at the ballot box in 2020.

The 22 or so months remaining in Trump’s terms may feel like a long time to wait for the rank-and-file, especially with Robert Mueller’s report expected to be completed at some point (soon?), but Pelosi told the Post that getting political revenge at the polls remains her preferred route.

She said: “I’m not for impeachment. This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to any press person before.

“But since you asked, and I’ve been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”

Criminals who worked for Trump Show all 5 1 /5 Criminals who worked for Trump Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Cohen Former lawyer for Donald Trump was sentenced to three years in prison on counts involving evading income tax, false disclosure of the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels and another hush money charge Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Paul Manafort Former campaign manager for Trump Manafort was found guilty in February 2018 of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. The crimes occurred prior to his appointment in Trump's campaign Getty Criminals who worked for Trump George Papadopoulos Former Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October 2017. He had lied about making contact with a professor who claimed that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. He was sentenced to 14 days in jail Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Flynn Former White House National Security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017. He had lied about conversations that he had with the Russian ambassador to the US during Trump's Presidential campaign. He was not given prison time due to his "significant assistance" to the Mueller investigation Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Rick Gates Deputy chairman of Trump's presidential campaign Gates pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in February 2018 AFP/Getty

Ms Pelosi’s approach is a political, rather than constitutional calculation.

When pressed on the issue of impeachment later in the interview, and whether President Trump was fit for office, the House Speaker said he was not.

“I don’t think he is. I mean [he’s] ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity-wise unfit,” she said. “No, I don’t think he’s fit to be president of the United States.”

This could, of course, all change depending on what the Mueller investigation ultimately turns up, but impeachment proceedings have historically been bruising, hyper-partisan affairs.

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Then there’s always the chance trump will invade California or something, which, you know, will probably chance the impeachment calculation.

The prospect of the process of impeachment is thought to be fraught enough that the GOP itself has pushed the possibility that Democrats might try to impeach Trump as motivation for Republican voters to head to the polls.

Then there’s a chance that impeachment hearings will erode the middle political ground that has been looking left in the era of Trump.