Democrats follow Trump impeachment trail with Mueller hearings

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To impeach or not to impeach? The question has dogged the Democratic leadership for months as the clock ticks towards the next U.S. presidential election.

The party is wrestling with a strategic electoral choice – would starting impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump harm or help a Democrat win the White House in 2020 – as well as an ethical dilemma – has the president acted in a manner that justifies impeachment, no matter the risks.

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Trump and the Democrat 2020 dilemma

In the week ahead the impeachment question will hit the headlines again with a series of congressional hearings taking place against the backdrop of campaign trail criticisms of Trump from Democratic contenders for the presidency.

The case for impeachment is set to be laid out, starting on Monday, when the House Judiciary Committee – chaired by Democrat Jerry Nadler – begins a hearing into "the alleged crimes and other misconduct laid out in special counsel Robert Mueller's report.” Doug Collins, the top Republican on the committee, has condemned the hearing as a “mock impeachment."

House Judiciary Committee Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (L) and ranking member Doug Collins (R-GA) engage in debate on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, May 8, 2019. /VCG Photo

Mueller found that while there was not enough evidence to establish a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, he could not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice.

Among the witnesses on Monday will be John Dean, both a central figure in the Watergate saga that brought Richard Nixon's presidency to a premature end and a vocal Trump critic.

On Tuesday, the Judiciary Committee will vote on whether to hold Attorney General Bill Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas: Barr for refusing to hand over the unredacted Mueller report and McGahn for refusing to appear as a witness.

The vote could open the door to allow committee chairmen to take legal action to enforce subpoenas without a vote of the full House of Representatives.

And on Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee will review the counterintelligence implications of the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi conducts her weekly news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center, Washington DC, May 23, 2019. /VCG Photo

The hearings over the next few days will focus on Republicans, but also be a test for Democrats that puts party unity in the spotlight.

Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, has worked hard to hold her party together on the issue. She is reported to fear impeachment would ultimately fail in the Republican-majority Senate and energize Trump's base of supporters ahead of the election.

Pelosi favors pressing ahead with congressional investigations and taking rhetorical shots at Trump, including recently accusing him of a "cover up," inching close enough towards the impeachment process to keep her party together without actually pulling the trigger – concentrating, essentially, on beating the president at the ballot box.

According to Politico, Pelosi said last week that she would rather see Trump voted out of the office and “in prison” than simply impeached.

But the leading player in the coming week's events – Nadler, the Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee – has a different perspective, and that could point to an explosive few days.

House Judiciary Committee Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, May 21, 2019. /VCG Photo

Nadler privately argues, according to CNN reporting, that by launching impeachment proceedings, the numerous investigations into Trump would be centralized and allow committees to focus on the party's broader agenda.

He is expected to lay out an argument for impeachment – backed by Democrat voters but not the public at large, polling suggests – in this week's high profile hearings, and attempt to hit back at Trump's repeated claim that the Mueller report clears him of obstruction of justice.

"Right now, we have to get the facts out, we have to educate the American people, because after all, the American people have been lied to consistently by the president, by the attorney general, who have misrepresented what was in the Mueller report,” Nadler told CNN.

But the resistance from other senior Democratic figures remains, and Nadler is seeking a balance between his views and those of others in the leadership.

"He's been very careful in advocating the view of the committee," one Democratic Judiciary member told CNN. "But he doesn't want to throw (Pelosi) under the bus."

For now, the Democratic congressional leaders are maintaining an "all is on the table and investigations must continue" line. The coming days will further test the party's ability to stick to it.