For establishment Democrats who have placed all their hopes on Robert Mueller to save them from Trump, must feel like they been betrayed today. After two years of elevating Mueller to near demigod status, Mueller appeared before cameras today to reiterate the main findings of his report and to say that he will speak no more, essentially telling Congress he will not testify.
In his prepared remarks, Mueller basically put the ball back in Congress’s court, arguing that the Special Counsel’s Office did not make a determination as to whether or not Trump committed a crime because of “longstanding [Justice] Department policy,” which states that a President “cannot be charged with a Federal crime.” Democrats have been loudly protesting that Trump has been ignoring Congress, a “co-equal branch of government” under the Constitution. Well, you can have your cake and eat it too, it seems. If you really want to be treated like a co-equal branch of government, you have to exercise the power of that branch when appropriate. As Mueller stated,
The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.
That “other” process is laid out in the Constitution: impeachment. So, it’s decision time.
As a growing chorus of Democrats join calls to open an impeachment inquiry, it seems only Democratic Party leadership, House Majority leader Nancy Pelosi in particular, is preventing Congress from exercising its Constitutional authority. The Democratic leadership has got to feel at least a little shame that they needed a right-wing Republican, Justin Amash from Michigan, to show them how to publically make a case for impeachment. At a public town hall in his district yesterday, Amash even challenged Pelosi to begin impeachment hearings.
The ball is indeed back in the House Democrats’ court. Will they act, or will they find another couple hundred excuses that only make them appear week and disingenuous in the eyes of the public?
Game on.
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