Let’s catch our breath for a moment or two, shall we?
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she does not favor impeaching Donald John Trump. She says the president “isn’t worth it,” which I interpret to mean that she thinks so little of him that he isn’t worth the emotional and political capital it would cost to impeach him.
So, she is putting impeachment on the back burner. For now.
I did not hear the speaker say that impeachment would never be an option for the House to consider.
Look, the speaker is no fool. She is a seasoned political hand. She knows the lay of the land in the House that now comprises a Democratic majority, which is how Pelosi got to become speaker again at the beginning of the year.
Pelosi is waiting — along with many of the rest of us — for Robert Mueller to finish his task. He is wrapping up an investigation into whether Trump’s campaign for president “colluded” with Russian government goons in 2016 to influence outcome of that year’s election.
She knows she likely has enough Democratic votes in the House to impeach Trump; it requires only a simple majority. The bar is much higher in the Senate, where the president would stand trial. Two-thirds of the Senate need to cast votes to convict the president. Pelosi knows that there aren’t enough Republican votes to finish what the House would start.
Might there be enough to GOP votes to convict Trump if Mueller produces compelling evidence? Might there be something coming from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York that would sway GOP senators?
The speaker is waiting for all that to play out.
Meanwhile, the far-left wing of her Democratic Party House caucus needs to chill out. Stop the impeachment yammering. Settle down and worry about legislating matters that come before them.
There might be time to get serious about impeaching this president.
Or, there might be nothing at all.
I am one American who is willing to wait for the special counsel to finish his job.