Nancy Pelosi warms up to impeachment

| 9:00 pm EDT June 19, 2019
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It’s long been widely misreported that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment will never happen. But in reality she has not said this; she’s simply periodically said that impeachment wasn’t happening at that particular moment, and that she would prefer to amass enough of a case against Donald Trump to force his ouster before going ahead with it. Now Pelosi is making remarks which make clear that she’s warming up to impeachment.

Earlier today, Nancy Pelosi was asked about the concept of censure. According to Heather Caygle of Politico, Pelosi said this in response: “I think censure is just a way out. If you want to go, you gotta go … If the goods are there, you must impeach. Censure is nice but it is not commensurate with the violations of the constitution should we decide that’s the way to go.”

This makes two things clear. First, Pelosi isn’t looking for a way of avoiding having to impeach Donald Trump. If she were, censure would be her easiest cop-out, and she’d be embracing it (or keeping that door open) as opposed to shutting it down like this. Second, Pelosi is making more clear than ever that her position on impeachment isn’t “no” – it’s “if” and ostensibly “when.”

This isn’t what most members of the Resistance want to hear, of course. It doesn’t help that a number of pundits are falsely spinning impeachment as if it were a magic wand that House Democrats are simply refusing to wave. If impeachment had already been invoked by now, things like today’s Hope Hicks hearing would have gone exactly the same, as the early stages of impeachment are literally just a prolonged legal battle over testimony and evidence. But Pelosi is clearly warming up to impeachment, and she’s not looking for a way of avoiding the inevitable.