WASHINGTON — Members of Congress this week will be spending time in their home districts, except for those sitting on a panel spearheading an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
The House Intelligence Committee has scheduled more closed-door depositions this week before the proceedings are expected to become public later this month in a push that could result in an impeachment vote in a sharply divided House before the end of the year.
Over the weekend, Republicans on the committee received a surprise offer from a lawyer for the whistleblower, whose complaint about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine spurred the inquiry. His client is willing to answer written questions submitted by House Republicans.
Attorney Mark Zaid tweeted Sunday that the whistleblower would answer questions directly from Republican members “in writing, under oath & penalty of perjury,” part of a bid to stem escalating efforts by Trump and his GOP allies to unmask the person’s identity, the Associated Press reported.
“Being a whistleblower is not a partisan job nor is impeachment an objective. That is not our role,” Zaid tweeted.
But House Republicans declined the offer.
“When you’re talking about the removal of the president of the United States, undoing democracy, undoing what the American people had voted for, I think that individual should come before the committee,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
The offer circumvents committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who Republicans complain has frozen them out of the inquiry process by not allowing them to call witnesses during the closed-door sessions. They have complained a House-approved resolution laying down ground rules for the public phase of the inquiry also gives too much control to majority Democrats.
Bitter divide
Congress is bitterly divided over the inquiry, and how that tension plays out among lawmakers and the electorate was a topic of exploration for political observers following Thursday’s vote.
Not one Republican broke ranks to support the resolution, while just two Democrats defected to oppose the measure. Compare that to when nearly the entire House voted to launch an inquiry into President Richard Nixon in 1973, or when 31 Democrats joined Republicans to launch an impeachment inquiry into President Bill Clinton in 1998.
“Times are different now,” wrote Lisa Mascaro of the Associated Press. “The polarizing of the country plays out in almost all aspects of political life. Impeachment proceedings, so far, are only reflecting that divide, in Congress as in the country at large.”
The inquiry currently underway is centered on a whistleblower complaint about a July 25 phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. A transcript of the call shows the president asking for a “favor” — an investigation of political rival Joe Biden and his family. The impeachment inquiry is an investigation into whether the president said he would withhold military aid and dangled a White House visit as a quid pro quo.
Peter Bacon Jr. of the data analytics website FiveThirtyEight concluded that there is no incentive for Republicans to stray from the unified bloc supporting the president in the House or Senate. Trump is known to support a primary challenger to anyone who opposes him, and those who would have opposed him have either resigned or lost their reelection in 2018. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, who voted for the resolution, left the party in July and identifies as Independent.
“With that kind of ironclad support for the president, how could even one Republican senator vote for his removal, never mind the 20 that would be required for the motion to pass?” Bacon asked.
While Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has been outspoken against Trump, he has avoided speculating on his verdict before articles of impeachment are delivered from the House, which would trigger a trial in the Senate to either acquit or remove the president from office.
Public sentiment
The heightened partisan divide raises the political stakes for Democrats in Congress, observed New York Times chief Washington correspondent Carl Hulse.
“The mostly party-line vote threatened to undermine public confidence in the proceedings, making it easier for voters to dismiss it as yet another skirmish in an endless partisan war, rather than a weighty constitutional process,” he wrote. “Democrats are now faced with the challenge of mounting a compelling case to the public that can cut through the political noise and generate even the barest of bipartisan consensus, knowing that the greater likelihood is that Mr. Trump will be acquitted in the Republican-led Senate.”
Recent polling shows an equally divided electorate over the question of impeachment. A Washington Post/ABC poll last week had 49% supporting impeachment and 47% against. The Post reported the results were essentially unchanged from its poll on the same question in early October.
On the question of an impeachment inquiry, an AP/NORC poll found 47% of Americans approve while 38% disapprove. The survey taken last week also revealed a sharp divide on the emphasis Congress should place on the impeachment inquiry. Most Americans (33%) said the inquiry should be a top priority while nearly an equal share (31%) said it shouldn’t be pursued at all. Nineteen percent said it should be important but not a top priority, and 16% said it should not be an important priority.
Trump’s campaign has predicted that the impeachment inquiry will backfire on Democrats in 2020, with the president citing unidentified polling to make his case that the divisive issue works in his favor.
“In reality, however, polling indicates that the impeachment inquiry is broadly supported in the battleground states that are key both to Trump’s reelection hopes and the balance of power in Congress,” Vox reported Friday.
The website cited New York Times/Sienna College polling showing the inquiry playing well in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, even though majorities in those states oppose the ultimate consequence of impeachment.
But Vox suggested the impact of broadcasting the proceedings controlled by Democrats could change public sentiment toward the president going into the 2020 election and further damage his reputation even among Republicans, even if he isn’t removed from office.
The Washington Post poll found the president’s approval rating among Republicans has dropped from 78% in April to a “record low” 74% this month.
“... as the Nixon Watergate hearings taught us, public hearings laying out the evidence that Trump abused his office during his dealings with the new Ukrainian government could change that in a hurry,” Vox observed.
The Washington Post poll last week said 47% believe the president did something seriously wrong in his call to Ukraine and 35% believe Trump did nothing wrong.
Two Utah Republicans who are participating in the closed-door hearings, Reps. Chris Stewart and John Curtis, contend the testimony so far has shown the president did nothing in his call to Ukraine that rises to the level of impeachment.