Pelosi’s Gambit

Pelosi’s Gambit 

Leader McConnell and Speaker Pelosi in a Clash of the Titans

Say what you will about Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell but the successful theft of a Supreme Court judgeship from President Obama, in the case of Merrick Garland, and his more recent bottling of what the media has reported are more than 400 House-passed bills addressing everything from violence against women to election reform and climate change, is proof positive that as a strategist he is the most worthy of adversaries. 

However, he may have met his match in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, perhaps the greatest legislative strategist in the House of Representatives since LBJ. 

Following the impeachment vote by the House, Senator McConnell expected the House to simply turn the process over to him, despite the fact that he publicly acknowledged the fact that he would falsely swear an oath of impartiality before conducting the trial in the Senate. Furthermore, he had also stipulated that he did not intend to call any witnesses even though the President had circumvented the will of Congress by ordering them not to respond to a lawful subpoena during the House proceedings.

McConnell was surprised by Pelosi’s decision to hold off on transferring the articles of impeachment to the Senate, ostensibly as she waited to see that an agreement on conducting a fair trial would be reached before conveying the articles to the Senate. Not because he was concerned about that rationale but because he was concerned that a delay might allow more evidence to come to light. 

As it turns out, he was right. Even in the week since the vote, new evidence has come to light that makes it even more clear that critical defense aid, authorized by Congress, and in direct circumvention of the law, to pressure the Ukraine to open up an investigation into Trump’s potential opponent in the 2020 election. A series of emails, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act has clearly shown that within 1.5 hours of the now infamous call with Ukrainian President Zelensky President Trump ordered the embargo of the desperately needed defensive aid. Further, the chain of evidence within these emails indicates that the author knew what he was doing was wrong and made it clear that the hold was not for public knowledge.

One additional, and interesting, theory came from a former Bush aid who speculated that Pelosi might be trying to deny the President the opportunity to treat the 2020 State of the Union speech as a sort of victory lap after a McConnell led show trial in the Senate disposes of the articles of impeachment without witnesses. 

Here, in the foothills of the White Mountains, as one might expect, opinions on impeachment are divided, but there is a growing sentiment for a trial that is fair and impartial. National polling reflects the same sentiments, with over 72% favoring a trial with, at the very least, key witnesses. Americans may be divided about many things but a sense of fairness and justice are not among them. A small ray of hope in these difficult times.

With the recent killing of Soleimani in Iraq, a growing sense of alarm over the escalation of tensions and outright violence between the US and Iran further colors the sense among people that fair process and cooler heads are called for in this perilous moment.

It is understandable that many are skeptical of the decision to take out Soleimani, in light of impeachment proceedings, but there is no doubt that the nexus of these two crises demands extraordinary transparency on both to avoid deepening the breach between Americans of goodwill on both sides.