Dare I Eat a Peach

Prunus Persica by Otto Wilhelm Thomé (from Wikipedia)

In an interview conducted Wednesday with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti of The Hill's daily morning news show Rising on Wednesday, Hawaii Congresswoman and 2020 Democratic hopeful Tulsi Gabbard was unequivocal in her position that "impeachment would be a divisive process and that voters must be the ones to remove President Trump from office."  She went on to say that at her rallies she hands out copies of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to those in attendance to remind them of what's at stake in the election.  Perhaps in the meanwhile since that interview, she has read the part about how "Congress shall have the sole Power of Impeachment" because 2 days later, she dis-unequivocated and now says on reading the transcript of Trump's conversation with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in July and details of the whistleblower complaint released late in the week, "not impeaching the president would set a very dangerous precedent," to whit:

Future presidents, as well as anyone in positions of power in the government, will conclude that they can abuse their position for personal gain, without fear of accountability or consequences.

Also late to the impeachment game were a quintuple of freshman congresswomen (no, not them-- they came ready) who refer to themselves as "badasses" on the basis of their military and intelligence experience prior to their election to congress.  I'm not especially persuaded by the military and intelligence credentials-- after too much familiarity with the spectacle of medals or CIA experience being paraded around as a license to conduct mischief (see General Kelly, Oliver North, Alexander Haig, General Petraeus, John Brennan, James Clapper, Michael Hayden), I need a lot more to go on than a career choice-- but I know many will be.  But the Badasses along with fellow "national security" democratic congresspersons Gil Cisneros and Jason Crow lay out a pretty good case in an op ed to the Washington Post:

The president of the United States may have used his position to pressure a foreign country into investigating a political opponent, and he sought to use U.S. taxpayer dollars as leverage to do it. He allegedly sought to use the very security assistance dollars appropriated by Congress to create stability in the world, to help root out corruption and to protect our national security interests, for his own personal gain. These allegations are stunning, both in the national security threat they pose and the potential corruption they represent. We also know that on Sept. 9, the inspector general for the intelligence community notified Congress of a “credible” and “urgent” whistleblower complaint related to national security and potentially involving these allegations. Despite federal law requiring the disclosure of this complaint to Congress, the administration has blocked its release to Congress.

As a citizen who is already on board with the idea that Trump has engaged in a requisite amount of High Crimes and Misdemeanors for impeachment to remain a threat to him (here's a running list), this makes a further convincing case to me for an impeachment inquiry, and it may have tipped the scales for other members of congress, including the Footdragger of the House Nancy Pelosi who until recently had an opinion more in line with Tulsi Gabbard's pre-Friday.

Speaking of Speakers of the House, as revealed in an incredibly satisfying article in Vanity Fair that came out this week, Former Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin who has recently joined the board at Fox News after matriculating out of Congress following the 2018 election is himself moving toward the impeach column.*  Said one Fox executive, “Paul is embarrassed about Trump and now he has the power to do something about it,”  (emphasis mine.  ^_^)  Courageous bunch of leaders we have in this country, wouldn't you say?   You might call them a bunch of real peaches.

The chaos at Fox undermines a bit the political case that many have made and some continue for now to hold, that Impeachment is not a smart political move for House Democrats since, requiring 67 votes to succeed in the Senate, it will fail in formal proceedings if it moves to the Republican controlled chamber.  There is necessarily a political component to the undertaking of any Impeachment, but there is a prudent alternative to "letting the voters decide" versus "rushing through a doomed-to-fail impeachment for the sake of having it done".  The option of impeachment is in place to serve as a contingency for removing from office an Executive whose actions have been demonstrated to enrich himself or to harm the country.  Popularity with the President's base is nowhere to be accounted for in the duties laid out in the Constitution.  Might I suggest taking seriously the responsibility of Congress to conduct the proceedings as thoroughly, judiciously, transparently and free of politics as duty calls for.  A poorly conducted inquiry that accidentally "exonerates" the president on a technicality would be disastrous.

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* Now that's it's a distinct possibility, Bill Maher in typical crotchety old man fashion has gone the other direction; after months of whining for impeachment during the largely baseless and fruitless Mueller investigation, he's suddenly against it.