Talk of impeachment, which had reached a fever pitch on Capitol Hill prior to Robert Mueller’s testimony, more or less died down when the former special counsel declined to deliver the fireworks Democrats had hoped would build momentum for Donald Trump’s ouster. But now, as they return from their August recess, House Democrats are planning to dig back into one of the most explosive Trumpworld scandals—a new chapter in their ongoing but hazy impeachment proceedings that could figure heavily into the 2020 race.

According to the Washington Post, Democrats this fall are expected to focus their oversight efforts on Trump’s apparent involvement in the 2016 plot to cover up his alleged affairs with adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations as part of the catch and kill scheme, but Trump has not been faulted for the payoff, despite Cohen’s attempts to implicate him. Congressional Democrats, then, will reportedly reexamine Individual-1’s role in the illegal hush money agreements, as well as questions about whether he would have been charged with a crime had he not been president. (Mueller and his investigators never considered charges against Trump, owing to a Department of Justice guideline that a sitting president cannot be indicted while in office.) “As with evidence of presidential obstruction of justice, the conclusion seems inescapable: that [Trump] would have been tried had he been anybody else,” Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told the Post. “And now it’s left to Congress again to figure out what to do with the lawbreaking and apparent impunity of the president.”

The new probe comes amid confusion among Democrats about the status of impeachment proceedings against the president. Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, has said in recent weeks that his panel’s investigations have shifted into “formal impeachment proceedings.” But Nancy Pelosi, who has opposed such proceedings on the grounds that they could divide voters and embolden Trump’s base, has held her ground. “The public isn’t there on impeachment,” she warned in an August conference call. “If and when we act, people will know he gave us no choice.” Still, other lower-ranking Democrats have backed Nadler’s narrative and say that formal articles are likely to be drafted this fall, possibly as soon as this month. Whether those semantic differences are a calculated attempt to appease both progressives and moderates, or simply the result of inter-party confusion, is unclear. “I don’t think the public is really...clear about what’s going on,” Rep. John Yarmuth, who supports impeachment, told Politico in a recent interview. “Whether that’s an intentional strategy or not, I don’t know. But I think that’s clearly the case.”

What does seem clear is that Pelosi has no plans at the moment to throw her weight behind impeachment, preferring to oust Trump in a little over a year rather than through acrimonious proceedings, which the president could use to rile up his base and potentially elicit sympathy from moderates. And without the House Speaker’s support, no such proceeding is likely to get off the ground, even if a majority of Congressional Democrats now back the cause. Still, bringing Trump oversight probes back into the spotlight, including by potentially holding high-profile hearings with Daniels and McDougal, could allow Democrats to further highlight the president’s outrageous behavior, and maybe even uncover additional wrongdoing as they build the case against him in 2020.

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