Could a long-expected vote on the impeachment of President Donald Trump really be near?
Breaking news on Tuesday was that the House Judiciary Committee will vote on two articles of impeachment on Thursday, sending them on to the full House next week with a floor vote expected by Christmas.
If you've been ignoring what's going on, it might be time to catch up.
The House Democratic majority's move to action sets up a U.S. Senate trial to begin, and perhaps end, in January.
House Democrats aren't waiting for voters to decide whether Trump stays or goes next year. They'll try at least to hasten his exit.
The chairmen of key House committees honed in on two prospective articles of impeachment.
One would focus on the president's abuse of power and the other on his obstruction of Congress.
Potential obstruction of justice allegations outlined in special counsel Robert Mueller's report of the long-running investigation of Russian intervention in the 2016 U.S. elections are not included, at least not directly.
The focus is instead on President Trump's withholding nearly $400 million in critical U.S. military aid to Ukraine while seeking a political favor from that country's president to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Trump released the aid after a whistleblower reported Trump's request for a favor in a July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president.
Trump has tweeted that the resulting calls for his impeachment are "sheer Political Madness," and his Republican allies condemn the process as a sham.
The Democrats' decision to narrow the grounds for impeachment to the Ukraine scandal came after the key House chairmen met privately with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday night at the conclusion of a nine-hour impeachment hearing before the Judiciary Committee.
The Judiciary Committee on Monday officially received the House Intelligence Committee's report on its findings after that panel took both public and private testimony in recent weeks.
Lawyers representing both political parties testified about the findings and took questions from committee members in the long, often contentious hearing Monday.
The leadup to this historic week has seen Pelosi and others in the Democratic majority talking about their duty under the U.S. Constitution to check a president who has blatantly undermined national security and jeopardized the integrity of U.S. elections.
"Our democracy is what is at stake," Pelosi said as she announced the House would move forward with impeachment. "The president leaves us no choice but to act."
Meanwhile, Republicans see their duty quite differently. They defend this president and criticize the process Democrats have followed to get to this moment.
The result then is that the House's all-but-certain vote to impeach, whenever it happens, will be partisan, reflecting the Democratic control there.
The Senate vote on the president's likely acquittal will be partisan, too, given the Senate's Republican majority.
The votes should be based on merit, not pure politics. Yet, partisan politics being what they are, it may not matter that these votes will come after many, many hours of testimony to the House Intelligence Committee that revealed overwhelming evidence against the president and others regarding pressure on Ukraine to meddle in U.S. politics.
That was followed last week by a hearing before the Judicial Committee in which three of four legal scholars said Trump's attempts to have Ukraine investigate his Democratic rivals are clear grounds for impeachment. The fourth warned against rushing the process.
This week, the Judiciary Committee heard the lawyers for the Democrats and Republicans review the 300-page report from the Intelligence Committee's investigation, which concluded that Trump had "compromised national security to advance his personal political interests."
As the evidence mounted, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., boiled his thoughts down to a simple sentence:
"The president welcomed foreign interference in our election in 2016, he demanded it in 2020, and then he got caught."
The question remains whether this president will be held responsible, either through impeachment or in next year's election.
He certainly should be.
Commentary on 12/11/2019