In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post Magazine earlier this month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put her foot down on impeachment. “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,” she said conclusively. “He’s just not worth it.” Her warning appears prescient in light of the conclusion of Robert Mueller’s investigation, which Attorney General William Barr said Sunday had found no evidence of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, though it punted on the issue of obstruction of justice. While controversial, the summary was still a major win for Donald Trump, and a setback for some Democrats who had hoped to use the special counsel’s findings as a springboard to push him out of office.

In light of the report, Pelosi’s stance is being retroactively praised as Democrats come to terms with the tight political spot they’re in. “I think her instincts were correct,” Rep. Gerry Connolly told Politico. “What did we really think Mueller was going to do?” Barr’s report, he added, “exposes some of those early calls [for impeachment] for being premature and not based on the evidence at hand. And I think it sets that back. It doesn’t let [Trump] off the hook, but you cried wolf way too early.”

“Not only was Nancy wise, but because of her experience, she was able to lead us and guide us in the right direction on this,” added Rep. Marc Veasey.

Part of what Pelosi’s interview was intended to insulate against was a costly and ineffective impeachment fight. In that sense, Mueller’s findings may actually be good for Democrats in the long run. Sure, the report landed with a thud, but it removed some of the urgency from Democratic cries for impeachment, divisive among voters even before Mueller turned in his report. Moreover, if Senate Republicans were hesitant to convict the president before the report, they’re even less likely to do so now, even if Democrats can get articles of impeachment through the House. In the lead-up to 2020, the fact that Dems can avoid such a divisive confrontation altogether is a net positive.

There’s also the fact that Mueller’s findings, if and when they are made public, will likely give Pelosi and her caucus plenty to work with. Though Trump and his campaign may not be guilty of collusion or criminal behavior, that doesn’t mean their actions were sterling. “You can hurt [Trump] more without impeaching him,” a Democratic aide close to the issue elucidated to Politico. “If you’re going to go after him, it has to be a kill shot. But otherwise, you can keep cutting him over and over again, and then beat him in 2020.”

Of course, the effectiveness of this strategy will be determined, in part, by Trump’s counterpunches. And right now, the president has a leg up. We don’t yet know how closely the attorney general’s summary tracks with Mueller’s actual findings, but it has opened the door for Trump and his allies to take a victory lap. Over the weekend, the president boasted on Twitter that the investigation resulted in his “Complete and Total EXONERATION,” and the Post reported Sunday that he and his allies plan to use Barr’s summary to bludgeon Democrats and the media, painting various congressional investigations as groundless.

Ultimately, the issue of Trump’s fitness for office is more likely to be decided by voters than by Congress. And as both sides recalibrate after the report’s release, Democrats may ultimately conclude that’s a good thing. “We want to make sure that we . . . employ this mechanism of impeachment as an absolute last resort,” Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke told a crowd at a campaign event in South Carolina over the weekend. “Ultimately, I believe this will be decided at the ballot box in 2020.”

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