Democrats have been signaling that they aren’t gung ho about impeaching President Donald Trump. Kamala Harris said last month that “going in the direction of impeachment is not a good idea.” Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader and likely the next speaker, told CNN in August that he hasn’t “ruled anything in” or “out.” He pledges instead to “follow the facts.” Sherrod Brown, the Democratic senator-elect from Ohio, declared during the campaign that he “would not support an impeachment of Trump.”
But Democrats sounded cool toward that course in the midterm campaign of 2018, too. (“For those who want impeachment . . . that’s not what our caucus is about,” said California Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi.) They got over it. A little more than a year after those elections, a Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Trump a first time. They may get over it again, as both the facts and political convenience lead them to impeach first the president’s subordinates, such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and then the boss himself.
The Constitution gives Congress wide latitude over the matter. It has the power to impeach officials, including the president, when it judges them guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What those are is a matter of debate. The Founders rejected the idea that running the executive branch badly was enough reason to remove a president. But James Madison suggested that abuses of power could be impeachable even when they don’t violate any federal statute. Such transgressions featured in each of the four presidential impeachments that have passed the House in U.S. history.
Because Congress has a broad power to exercise its judgment, and because Trump habitually disregards legal and moral constraints on his conduct, Democrats will have plenty of possible bases from which to launch an inquiry. Corruption, systematic misuse of the pardon power and launching a war without congressional authorization are all good candidates. Most voters aren’t eager for impeachment, according to a Wall Street Journal poll, but another survey from Politico found that 80 percent of Democratic voters would support it. A majority of all voters think Trump has committed impeachable offenses.
Democratic voters, happy to have won the midterms, will give their new representatives some leeway. But fast-forward a few months. If Trump decides to maintain his tariffs, continue the war in Iran or return to confrontational immigration enforcement, there’s no guarantee the Democratic Congress will be able to stop him. Given that so many pols spent their campaigns promising to “fight Trump,” how would they explain inaction on impeachment to voters? Such a posture would doubtless create an opportunity for Democratic presidential candidates to rebuke the Democratic Congress for cowardice.
Those who are leery of impeachment raise two objections. The first is that it wouldn’t succeed in driving Trump out of office. After all only once in U.S. history — when Richard Nixon resigned before Congress could remove him — has a president left office because of impeachment. Two swings at Trump resulted in no Senate convictions or lasting political damage to him. The second objection is that a drive for impeachment would make Democrats look more interested in political vengeance than in issues of immediate interest to voters, such as the cost of living.
It’s true that Democrats would have to balance investigations with legislation. It’s also true that impeachment lacks teeth. Given the unwillingness of most senators to vote to convict a president of their own party — not even one senator in U.S. history had ever done so until the first Trump impeachment — a House impeachment has become a glorified resolution of censure. But impeachment doesn’t seem to have blown back on the impeachers, either.
In 1998, as the Republicans were preparing to impeach Bill Clinton, they lost five House seats when they had expected to win big. They impeached the president anyway, and in the next election narrowly won the White House, Senate and House. Democrats narrowly won their own trifecta in 2020, in the first election after they impeached Trump. The prosecuting parties didn’t win the 2000 and 2020 races because of impeachment, but voters didn’t write them off as obsessive and vindictive.
The potential political effect of impeachment, in either direction, has probably declined. In 1998, the House’s pursuit of Clinton seemed like a threat to the peace, prosperity and stability that Americans were enjoying. Now the exercise is a much more routine feature of U.S. politics.
Sen. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat, says that he isn’t sure impeachment is “viable” and that Democrats should focus on other issues. But he sounded the same notes in May 2018 and ended up leading impeachment in the House the next year, which he parleyed into his Senate run. Don’t be surprised if he and others evolve the same way.
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