Why Are Democrats Shrinking From the Impeachment Fight?

On the substance, Democrats won the first two weeks of the impeachment hearings by TKO. They had the advantage that the facts are in their favor, especially considering the ground that congressional Republicans have tried to defend.

At the outset, Republicans created an impossible standard for themselves. Taking their cues from President Donald Trump, they chose to defend the idea that the Trump-Ukraine call was “perfect” and that there was “no quid pro quo,” when the record simply wouldn’t support it. This was obvious enough about the call from the very beginning, and it became clear about the pressure campaign on the Ukrainians by the time the opening statement of acting Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor’s deposition was released.

The contention that the call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was the Platonic ideal of a communication with a foreign leader opened the way for Democrats to make a big deal of witnesses alarmed or unsettled by the conversation. Thus, the brief star turn for Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman to come and tell the committee that the call was “inappropriate.” And the newsworthy testimony from Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, that the call was “unusual,” and from former National Security Council aide Tim Morrison, putting it even more delicately, that “it is not what we recommend the president discuss.”

There really should be no debate about these characterizations of the call, except Republicans decided to try to have one.

Republicans now emphasize that none of the witnesses so far had direct knowledge of Trump’s directives on Ukraine and that even Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, said the president formally denied a quid pro quo to him in a phone conversation (albeit late in the game and at the same time Trump said he wanted Zelensky “to do the right thing”).

This might be a defense that is useful only so long as no first-hand witnesses testify. But it gets to a weakness in the Democrats’ argument that will probably become even more prominent when the impeachment case, as it almost surely will, makes it to the Senate for a trial (and an acquittal).

Why should Democrats be content to hear from the current batch of witnesses, people who were, mostly, out of the loop, rather than getting testimony from the true insiders? If they wanted to lock down their case, this wouldn’t be a close call. They would take the time to litigate through various privilege claims and get the testimony of Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, among others.

A judge’s ruling that former White House counsel Don McGahn must show up in compliance with a congressional subpoena related to the Mueller investigation doesn’t mean Democrats will get all the testimony they want, but it suggests that waiting for the courts wouldn’t be pointless, either.

Democrats are reluctant to do this for a simple reason: They want to get the articles of impeachment out of the House in time to avoid running into their own presidential nominating process, which would be politically awkward. By the Iowa caucuses in February, we will be in the election season in earnest, and it will seem particularly bizarre to try to remove the president on the cusp of his reelection campaign.

The gravity of impeachment has gotten the Democratic hearings, now switching over to the House Judiciary Committee, lots of attention, but it ultimately could be an anchor around the entire effort. If Democrats were only trying to get to the bottom of the Ukraine controversy and exact a political price in the form of exposure and damaging revelations, they would have a slam dunk. Instead, they are trying to build a case for impeachment and removal—a very high bar requiring a national consensus to succeed—atop an episode that, at the end of the day, didn’t keep defense funding from Ukraine or result in any investigations or even statements about investigations.

This is firmer ground for Republicans to fight on, and they are beginning to retreat to it—after exhausting the alternatives.