The real reason House Democrats tabled Donald Trump’s impeachment today

| 7:45 pm EDT July 17, 2019
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Yesterday, House Democrats passed a resolution condemning Donald Trump for being a racist. Today, they formally held Trump’s co-conspirators William Barr and Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt. It’s clear that momentum is picking up. Yet when Democratic Congressman Al Green tried to initiate impeachment against Trump today, House Democrats voted to table it – and the vote wasn’t even close. There’s a reason for this, and it has nothing to do with what the alarmists on television and social media are yelling.

This is not a sign that impeachment will never happen. It’s not a sign that House Democrats aren’t doing anything. It’s not even a sign that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is fundamentally opposed to impeachment (and for the record, she never said as much, no matter how many times the media misquotes her). What actually happened today is that Al Green jumped the gun – and if his motion had succeeded, it would have actually reduced the odds of Trump’s ouster.

There’s a reason Democratic House leaders keep punting on impeachment. Once they formally start the process, they’ll be on the hook to lay out the criminal case against Donald Trump for all to see. There’s a good amount to go on right now, including the unredacted versions of the Mueller report. But as we speak, House Democrats are in court fighting battles to force the witnesses to Trump’s obstruction to publicly testify against him. The Democrats are also in court fighting to obtain Trump’s tax returns and other records from various banks.

This is the kind of evidence that House Democrats need in order to make the kind of impeachment case that can actually finish Donald Trump off, as opposed to an impeachment case right now that would get them nowhere and would only end up emboldening Trump going forward. This is why the Democrats tabled Al Green’s impeachment motion today. Even many of the House Democrats who are in favor of impeachment are aware that jumping the gun right now would make Trump stronger, not weaker. The time for impeachment, if it’s going to happen, is after the court battles are won. That’s not how the process should work, but it is how the process works.