Will the Democrats move forward with impeachment?

[jimnyc]

Now they are in one hell of a pickle.

Some democrats in the house said they may not vote for impeachment. The support for impeachment has went down a lot and Trump's support up.

Schiff will have to testify. So will the whistleblower and all his connections. Joe Biden and son and Burisma actions will be unavoidable at a trial. Many other factors will be drawn in and likely other democrats involved. With support dropping and many Dem things coming out and discussed, and seeing a plan of action for the republicans in a senate trial - will they now get cold feet?

I said from the get go that this would be better for the republicans and much crap would come out about the left. That's been playing out daily. And it will get much worse if they follow through.

But if they bail? Well the all of those on the left that do support them and listened to their BS for so long, those folks will be pissed. So it's going to be a lose lose proposition at this point for the Dems, IMO.

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Shifty Schiff Suddenly Backpedals His Support for Impeachment

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) has been the greatest force pushing for President Donald Trump's impeachment. For two years Schiff told us the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. After Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered his report and found that no collusion took place, Schiff then shifted his focus to Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In that call, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, for corruption. After all, the vice president was handling international relations with Ukraine on behalf of the Obama administration and, at the same time, his son was being paid $50,000 a month by Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian gas company. And Hunter had absolutely no natural energy experience.

Democrats have ran with this idea that Trump threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless an investigation into the Bidens took place. The released transcript showed that to be completely false and Zelensky himself said no quid pro quo took place, yet Democrats continued with their impeachment inquiry.

Now, it looks like Schiff is having a change of heart... or at least on paper.

During a Sunday morning interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Schiff said he would have to "discuss this with my constituents and my colleagues" before deciding whether or not the House should move forward with articles of impeachment.

"I want to discuss this with my constituents and my colleagues before I make a final judgment on it. But there are a couple of important things we need to think about and one is are we prepared to say that soliciting foreign interference, conditioning official acts like $400 of taxpayer money and White House meetings to get political favors is compatible with the office?" Schiff asked. "Because if we do, it is basically carte blanche for this president and anyone who comes after him. But are we also prepared to say that Congress will tolerate the complete stonewalling of an impeachment inquiry or our oversight because if we do it means that the impeachment clause is a completely nullity and, more than that, our oversight ability is really an ability in name only."

Tapper pressed Schiff on the issue, reminding the congressman he previously said what Trump has done "is far more serious than what Nixon did."

"Explain how you have not come to the conclusion that the president should be impeached," Tapper said. "It sounds like you think he should be impeached."

Schiff reiterated that he wanted to hear from his constituents and colleagues about what was found during the inquiry.

Rest - https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2019/11/24/watch-shifty-schiff-suddenly-backpedals-his-support-for-impeachment-n2556989

[jimnyc]

Will She Do It? Insiders Predict Pelosi May Not Go Through With Impeachment After Hearings

Top Republicans — and even some Democrats and members of the media — now believe Democrats may pull back on officially impeaching the president, particularly as polls haven’t borne out a clear advantage for Democratic candidates.

After two weeks of impeachment hearings, which yielded little in the way of evidence that the president most definitely offered Ukraine a “quid pro quo” agreement trading an increase in foreign aid for an investigation into “corruption” involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is left with a choice: call off the impeachment and look weak or keep going and risk failure at the ballot box.

Multiple polls taken last week reveal that the impeachment hearings are having their most marked effect on independents, who are supporting the impeachment in ever-declining numbers, leaving moderate Democrats at risk of losing their seats and Democratic presidential contenders at a loss going into 2020.

The Hill reports Sunday that “public opposition to impeachment has some Republicans … voicing skepticism that Speaker Nancy Pelosi will go through with a vote on impeachment.”

Even President Donald Trump expressed skepticism, telling Fox News late last week that he doesn’t expect to face any true impeachment trial.

“I think it’s very hard for them to impeach you when they have absolutely nothing,” he said.

Pelosi hasn’t guaranteed a vote, but not taking one will put her in hot water with progressives and activist voters, who have been waiting since January 20 of 2017 to impeach Trump. She also runs the risk of handing Trump a major victory in his battles against a “witch hunt” right before he hits the campaign trail.

But polls show voters aren’t enthusiastic about impeachment, and a subsequent multi-state media push from Republicans ripping vulnerable Democrats for supporting Pelosi’s crusade has those same moderate Democrats reportedly begging the Speaker to halt the process.

Worse still, the media is now fretting that the impeachment hearings weren’t the slam dunk Democrats are saying they were and it will cost them support.

The New York Times reports that the hearings lacked the damning evidence Democrats like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) promised, partly because the White House pushed back on Schiff’s claims and released primary sources to refuse Schiff’s version of events, and partly because, the Times says, the hearings featured no witnesses with first-hand accounts of the president’s malfeasance.

Rest - https://www.dailywire.com/news/will-she-do-it-insiders-predict-pelosi-may-not-go-through-with-impeachment-after-hearings

[jimnyc]

Uh Oh: Lefty Media Realizing Impeachment May Be Bad for Democrats

Democrats were on cloud nine when the closed-door impeachment inquiry began. Back then, Rep. Adam Schiff was lying to the American people about what the president said on his July 25 phone call to the president of Ukraine. House Democrats selectively called witnesses, selectively leaked testimony, and continued to fool independent voters into thinking the Democrats were actually hysterical for a good reason.

The Soviet show trial really wasn't a good look for the Democrats, so the House voted on a bill that gave the process the false appearance of fairness while keeping the Democrats in full control of the narrative and substance of the impeachment inquiry. Two Democrats joined every Republican in voting against the bill, but Speaker Pelosi managed to ram it through.

But what little sunlight the Democrats allowed into the process was enough to start turning the American people away. Despite calling their best witnesses forward – most of whom, like the whistleblower, didn't actually hear Trump's July 25 phone call – support for impeaching the president fell as soon as the public hearings began. A recent poll finds support for impeachment has fallen five percent since October, and Trump's approval rating has shot up five percent during the same period. It seems the more Americans learn about Trump's handling of foreign aid to Ukraine, the more Americans approve of the president's job performance and want Trump to remain in office.

Worse for Democrats, it's largely the highly-prized independent voters who are souring on impeachment. Vanity Fair's recent headline, "'It Is Hard To Read This As Anything But A Warning': New Polling Suggests Democrats' Impeachment Push Could Alienate Key Voters," encapsulates the predicament Democrats now find themselves.

(Via Vanity Fair)


"Alas, for the Democrats, the promising numbers of late October and early November rapidly dissipated, and polling numbers have reverted to a level more consistent with long-term opinions on President Trump. In the latest Politico/Morning Consult poll, released on November 19, Independents opposed impeachment and removal from office 46% to 39%, a number close to the rolling averages of the last few weeks. It is notable that the poll was fielded after the first public impeachment hearings. Even the compelling testimony of witnesses like Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, failed to move the needle on public opinion. That doesn’t mean further hearings won’t energize greater opposition to Trump, but it’s a little hard to imagine more effective testimony than that offered by Yovanovitch and some of her Foreign Service colleagues."

In Yanovitch's so-called "effective" testimony, the former Ukraine ambassador appears to have perjured herself and admits having no first-hand knowledge about Trump's phone call to Zelensky or any delay in foreign aid. If these are the star witnesses – of what exactly, I'm not sure – the Democrats have found to make their case, then it should come as no surprise that the Democrats' case has fallen flat in the court of public opinion. And just imagine if Republicans had been allowed to call witnesses of their own.

Rest - https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bronsonstocking/2019/11/24/even-vanity-fair-knows-n2556996


WaPo Reporter Explains Why Dems Have 'Cold Feet' Over Impeachment

Poll after poll has shown that Americans are increasingly opposed to the Democrats' partisan impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) has repeatedly beaten the impeachment drum, saying the American people do want to "get to the bottom" of what took place in Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But you know the impeachment inquiries aren't going very well when Washington Post Congressional Reporter Rachael Bade is admitting Democrats are having cold feet pursuing this agenda.

“I think what we're starting to see, you know, is when the impeachment inquiry was first announced and [Democrats] started to do these depositions, a lot of people were asking, 'Can Nancy Pelosi peel off any Republicans?'" Bade asked "But I increasingly think the question is becoming does [Nancy Pelosi] lose more Democrats? Because Republicans have really unified behind the president, and although two Democrats voted against the impeachment inquiry rules that they voted on a couple of weeks ago, we are hearing behind-the-scenes there are moderates getting cold feet. And it comes back to these ads and people being afraid for being punished for voting to impeach the president.”

Democrats are "getting cold feet" because this is no longer about an impeachment inquiry. This is about whether or not to draft articles of impeachment, which would then move to the Senate (assuming the vote passed the House). This impeachment vote puts Democrats from red and purple areas between a rock and a hard place. When these Democrats stuck with their party and voted in favor of an impeachment inquiry, they were able to argue this was merely an investigation to "get the facts" surrounding Ukraine, not an actual bill to move forward with impeaching President Trump. Now those same Democrats have to vote and go on-the-record with whether or not they believe Trump's offenses were impeachable. That makes them vulnerable in districts where their constituents voted for Trump.

Rest - https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2019/11/24/evan-a-washington-post-reporter-admits-dems-are-getting-cold-feet-over-impeachment-n2556990