Here’s what Speaker Pelosi told the Washington Post:
There have been increasing calls, including from some of your members, for impeachment of the president.
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.
A lot of Americans are really anxious about where the country is right now, and some of them feel the nation’s institutions are in a perilous state. Do you share that concern?
No. Here’s why I don’t: Our country is great. It’s a great country. Our founders gave us the strongest foundation. … All the challenges we have faced, we can withstand anything. But maybe not two [Trump] terms. So we have to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Let’s make a clear distinction here about oversight hearings versus impeachment hearings. Several committees in the House of Representatives are starting to conduct oversight hearings about Trump administration’s misdeeds, hearings that aren’t specific to any potential removal from office. (To be sure, the findings from those hearings could conceivably form the basis of subsequent impeachment proceedings, in case the House later decided to go that route.)
Actual impeachment hearings would be a different beast. They would consist of Judiciary Committee and possibly other committee investigations, for which the full House would authorize the pursuit of specific articles. Said articles would pertain to particular matters of abuse of power, neglect of responsibility, corruption, and incompetence, matters substantial enough to indicate harm to our country and to our constitutional form of government as well as unfitness for office. (During the investigations, it would be clear that any contempt of Congress on the part of administration officials along the way, as in perjury, refusal to answer non-self-incriminating questions, and other attempts to thwart the investigations, would also be grounds for impeachment.) At the end of the investigations, the committees and then the full House would vote on whether to send the articles to the Senate for trial.
Rep. Pelosi has made clear her conditions for starting impeachment proceedings:
She doesn’t want to impeach the President because she thinks it would divide the country more than is already the case. Even given the wide array of serious crimes of office that we already know that the President has committed, we would have to discover something more compelling and overwhelming than that to even start the impeachment process. Some Republicans must support impeachment, or else the process cannot begin.Judiciary Committee Chairman Nadler has indicated close alignment to these preconditions.
Let’s leave aside for now the question of the Mueller investigation results. In light of the above, what would your position honestly be under this alternative scenario: