By Aly Kamadia, Editor-In-Chief of iDose
If politicians were fired for putting their selfish interests above the law, much of the United States Congress would have been empty. Though a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump was finally underway, history had already indicted some members of the Democratic Party.
Back when Robert Mueller’s report was published in early 2019 for the public to see, the Democratic House was handed the ammunition it needed to pursue impeaching Trump. Yet some senior Democrats molded themselves into barriers that stood in the way, finding themselves in the odd position of protecting Trump against impeachment. Silly allegiances like oaths to the US Constitution when assuming public office took a back seat for this group.
Most notably, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi trumpeted her sacred commandment that impeachment was off the table.
Plain and simple. No ifs ands or buts.
Though by late 2019, infighting within the Democratic Party had intensified. Astonishment in the hearts of countless Americans only grew as they continued to watch a president spit at the very office he ‘served’, along with the Constitution that he hadn’t read, much less understood.
On Sept. 20th, reports began to surface that implicated Trump as abusing his office once more. Though this time in a slightly distinct manner.
Trump had allegedly solicited the President of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election, while leveraging vital US national security interests for his personal gain. (I wrote those words as one who was critical of US posture in the region).
Outrage among Democrats who believed in the rule of law grew untamable. And it was hardly restricted to the young Democratic members who Pelosi had been branding as radicals (AOC / ‘The Squad’).
Senior Senator and heavyweight contender for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Elizabeth Warren, came out firing with a mouth louder than some of the military grade weapons that she wanted to ban.
On the evening of Sept. 20th, 2019, Warren tweeted:
After the Mueller report, Congress had a duty to begin impeachment. By failing to act, Congress is complicit in Trump’s latest attempt to solicit foreign interference to aid him in US elections. Do your constitutional duty and impeach the president.
Warren declared that ANYONE in her own party, including Pelosi, who didn’t pursue Trump for his crimes was virtually as guilty as the Donald himself. Very rarely had Washington D.C (or other democratic political capitols, for that matter) witnessed the courage of a politician going against their Dear Leader.
Thus with pressure shooting from every direction, Pelosi found herself drowning in stupidity and arrogance. Justice took control of the Speaker’s mouth, synchronized it with reality, and on Sept. 24th, 2019, she announced a formal impeachment inquiry into the president.
Her political reasons for protecting Trump from impeachment were based on the ‘thinking’ that it was useless because the Republican controlled Senate would not ultimately impeach Trump. And in her mind, the move would automatically be negative for the Democrats in the 2020 election.
Though even while the evidence (at the time of this writing) showed that Republican Senators had no interest in impeaching their Dear Leader, an indictment by the House of Representatives showed both Americans and the world that the rule of law actually had some teeth. It set a precedent to remind history and future presidents that they at least risked penalties for acting above the law.
As for prophesizing on how pursuing impeachment would impact the 2020 election, anyone claiming what was likely was either deluded or repeating talking points. The number of unknown variables (in a span of over one year!) rendered a coin toss equally as authoritative as the self-professed wizards in pundit land.
Moreover, those who claimed that pursuing impeachment somehow magically gave Trump extra arsenal were dead wrong. Trump was capable of saying anything to anyone at anytime – a formal impeachment inquiry didn’t change that.
For the Democrats, the politically strategic move at that point was to make the process move as quickly as possible. Why risk a negative impact if one didn’t need to? It seemed that both the Democrats and Pelosi understood that.
And even though there were a million questions in the air with every reason (at the time of authoring this piece) to believe that Senate Republicans would let Trump off the hook, the moment was historical. America and the world were reminded that the heart of the US Constitution was alive. Beating loudly against the very idea of Dear Leaders who were above the law.
Aly Kamadia is Editor-In-Chief of iDose. To read more articles by Kamadia, click here. To read the Editor’s message, click here.
Note: The views expressed in this article are the author/s, and not the position of Intellectual Dose, or iDose (its online publication). iDose reserves all rights, unless stated otherwise.
