The iron is hot by @BloggersRUs

The iron is hot

by Tom Sullivan

The whistleblower complaint was released minutes ago.

Acting president Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed Democrats "have been taken over by a radical group of people" and Nancy Pelosi is "no longer the Speaker of the House." The White House sent talking points intended for the Republican caucus to every member of Congress Wednesday and hastily tried to recall their mistake. The opening of formal impeachment proceedings has the president and the White House rattled.

David Graham writes at that The Atlantic that Trump is unnerved:

Chaos is a constant in the Trump administration, but this week there are signs of a far rarer impulse: panic. The indications come in Trump’s demeanor, including the listless speech; a combative, brief press availability with Zelensky at the UN this morning; and a rambling, stream-of-semi-consciousness press availability this afternoon. They also manifest in his actions, with the White House suddenly scrambling to release documents that it had spent weeks zealously defending. This is not strategic withdrawal, but a wholesale rout. Trump is probably right to be shaken. No matter how many administration officials try to spin an impeachment inquiry as somehow constituting good news for Trump, it’s not persuasive, even if the president is never impeached, much less convicted.

CNN reported Wednesday night that the whistleblower complaint in the Ukraine affair has been declassified. It could be posted online this morning about the time (9 a.m. EDT) acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire gives testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on why he and the Justice Department tried to keep it from them. It will be another news cycle in which Trump will not be in control.

“He didn’t see anything wrong" with his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told the Washington Post.

Nor would he. Leveraging military aid to Ukraine to extort help with undermining a domestic political rival comes as naturally as breathing to a man who has worked at the boundaries of the law his entire life.

The Post reports:

And as with the Mueller investigation, there is the risk that Trump’s frustration over impeachment — which he views as an attack on the legitimacy of his presidency — will come to so enrage him that it prompts him to begin lashing out and behaving erratically. In the words of one former aide, “It may lead to less structured output from the White House.”

Interpret that how you will.

For Democrats, the Zelensky call has been crystallizing. Pelosi told her Wednesday leadership meeting Democrats will focus articles of impeachment Trump's implicit threat to withhold military aid to Ukraine to benefit his reelection campaign:

“This has clarity and understanding in the eyes of the American people,” Pelosi told her leadership team, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting. “If we do articles, then we can include other things.”

The iron is hot on the Ukraine matter, and so is her caucus. So, there is reason to lock onto the Ukraine affair to focus the public's mind on Trump putting national security at risk for political gain and leveraging public money ("The Art of the Deal" tip: Use your leverage) to extort dirt on a political adversary from a foreign government. Time is a factor. The public's attention is limited.

Recognizing that, Democracy for America, CREDO Action, the Courage Campaign and other groups advocating impeachment have already proposed a time for congressional action to keep Democrats from becoming overly broad and bogged down by White House legal efforts to deflect and delay:

1. The House Judiciary Committee votes on articles of impeachment against President Trump by November 1, 2019; and

2. The full US House of Representatives votes on articles of impeachment against President Trump by November 15, 2019.

Trump may provide a "target-rich environment" for impeachment, Lawfare explains, but a scattershot approach may look to the public like Democrats are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Trump. He deserves it but:

[I]t is critically important to be disciplined at this juncture—to base articles of impeachment only on that activity which is not merely a plausible basis for removal but is unambiguously justified as a basis for removal. That means that anything that is a matter of policy—no matter how much one might disagree with the policy or how abhorrent one might find it—should not be included. For example, Congress should strongly resist the temptation to include disputes over border security—including both spending on the wall and the grotesque policy of family separation—in any articles it might draw up.

Lawfare suggests matters already documented in the Mueller probe and 1) "obstruction of justice and abuse of law enforcement institutions and personnel," 2) "attempts to leverage the power of the presidency to cause investigation and prosecution of political opponents," 3) the Ukraine matter (above), and 4) "the president’s efforts to obstruct or impede congressional investigations."

Another reason for speed and focus is Trump is stung and the White House is off balance. Disoriented. Democrats need to keep them that way and give Trump and Republicans no space to regroup.