As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
roamed Normandy on Thursday (she had brought along a contingent of
dozens of members of Congress for the official commemoration of the
seventy-fifth anniversary of D Day,
including veterans from both sides of the aisle), her party was
debating what it meant to want someone behind bars. Was it too tough, or
not tough enough? Politico had reported that, in a meeting of “top
Democrats,” on Tuesday night, Representative Jerrold Nadler, of New
York, had argued in favor of having the Judiciary Committee, which he
chairs, begin proceedings for the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Politico cited “multiple Democratic sources familiar with the meeting”
who said that Pelosi demurred, telling Nadler, “I don’t want to see him
impeached. I want to see him in prison.”
How did “lock him up” become a motto for forbearance and patience? The
logic here is that it is constitutionally complicated to indict a
sitting President. Indeed, Robert Mueller,
the special counsel whose investigation of Russian meddling in the
election and related matters is now closed, believed that Justice
Department guidance precluded him from making such a move. (If he had
done so, the crime would almost certainly have concerned obstruction of
justice, rather than collusion.) The calculation would be different,
obviously, if Trump were not President. And, as it happens, there is an
election next year, which could lead, fairly quickly, to his exit from
the White House. In other words, the way to hold him to account
criminally is to first hold him to account electorally.
But, others in the Democratic Party say, impeachment
is also a way to remove a President from office. That is, indeed, the
means to do so that the Constitution gives to Congress. The Democrats
view Pelosi as overly cautious. Trump, being a bully, has begun
insulting Pelosi in terms that he apparently thinks will get those close
to her to turn against her. In Normandy, shortly before Trump delivered
his remarks, Fox News’s Laura Ingraham asked him about the prospect of
Mueller testifying before Congress. Trump replied that Mueller had “made
a fool of himself” in the past. (The backdrop for those remarks was a
field full of the graves of fallen soldiers; Pelosi, in her own
interview with Andrea Mitchell, on MSNBC, said that talking about
impeachment wasn’t why she had come to France. She also praised Europe’s
“spirit of collaboration.”) Trump added, “Nancy Pelosi—I call her
Nervous Nancy—Nancy Pelosi doesn’t talk about it. She’s a disaster.
She’s a disaster. Let her do what she wants—you know what? I think
they’re in big trouble.”
And they think he’s in big trouble. At this point, though, it would be
hard to find many people who believe that, if the Democratic-controlled
House passes bills of impeachment—an indictment, in effect—the Senate
would convict him, which is the role that the Constitution gives to that
body. There may be wishful thinking about evidence emerging that is so
shocking that Senator Lindsey Graham stops his games of golf and
flattery with the President (Pelosi has also suggested that members of
her caucus wait for such a moment), but it would be reckless to launch
such an operation under the assumption that it would. For one thing, on
the subject of Trump, this group of Republicans doesn’t seem to shock
easily. The ones who do tend to retire, either with an impassioned
speech or by just slinking away. Campaigns are messy, but, if the goal
is removing Trump, an election may be more efficient than removal by
impeachment, and also more democratic, in the end.
And isn’t that the Democrats’ goal? The odd thing about Pelosi’s
reported prison comment is that the purpose and the measures it offers
seem blurred. Is the point really just to find whatever is the best way,
electoral or legislative, to lock Trump up, yielding an emotionally
satisfying mug shot of him and elegant photos of Melania sitting behind
the defendants’ table? Is it to get back at him, in the name of proving
that there is justice in the world? Or is it to make sure that, in
January of 2021, there is a new President in the White House who can
actually deliver justice, particularly to vulnerable populations? If the
Democrats win in 2020, how much does it matter what happens to Trump
next? Perhaps quite a lot; accountability and truth could use some
bolstering. But it might be worth recognizing that this isn’t such a
simple question.
Trump’s demands at his rallies to jail any number of people who have
opposed him have been far wilder than anything that Pelosi has said.
Those calls have also caused people on all sides to recoil, rightly, at
the idea that imprisonment is somehow the normal price for political
defeat. Of course, Trump’s targets—reporters, for example, in addition
to Democratic politicians—have not been all but accused of obstruction
of justice by a special counsel. For some, Trump presents their
purported crime as simply not being nice to him. Still, it would be good
for Democrats to consider where they want to go with the
prison-or-impeachment talk, and why. To put it another way, what is the
least Trumpian, most Trumpism-defeating way to try to insure that Trump
is not President for another term?
