The circus moves to Washington. During the 2018 campaign season the Democrats issued walking orders to their candidates to play down any talk of impeachment. Polling showed that impeachment talk was a negative for the Democrats. Supposedly they were going to govern, to bring civility back to Washington.
Of course, as soon as they won control of the House, those pretenses were dropped. The public and country be damned. Impeachment of PDJT is the #1 priority on their agenda. It overrides any and all other considerations. This is a key part of their campaign strategy for the run-up to the 2020 presidential campaign.
The Democrats know that they cannot win the Presidency in 2020 if the election is about the economy and how the common people are faring under Trump’s presidency. They know they cannot win if the narrative is about securing our border, stopping the flow of illegal aliens and interdicting illegal drugs. So their narrative has to be that PDJT is a criminal, is a racist, etc. They have to continue the narrative that his election was “illegitimate” due to Russian interference even though they were the only ones to collude with Russia during the 2016 election. They have to project all of their own failings on PDJT and hope that enough sticks to damage his chances.
To this end Nancy Pelosi has re-written House rules to make this easier to do. An important change that will undoubtedly affect early House actions is that depositions in front of House Committees do not have to have members of both parties present. This sounds like third-world country stuff.
To begin building the narrative for impeachment, the Democrats scheduled Michael Cohen to appear before the House Oversight Committee on February 7th. Supposedly his appearance is voluntary. But, the Democrats have a problem with Cohen. It is multi-faceted.
First, regardless of any smokescreen put out to the contrary, Michael Cohen is a “cooperating witness.” His deal depends on that. The idea that he would make things up, follow a script and/or be the Democrats lapdog is pretty obvious.
Second, his credibility is near zero since he is a proven liar and fraud. Who would believe him? Only diehard Democrats and virulent anti-Trumpers.
Third, his attorney had sent a letter to the committee indicating that Cohen would not be able to address any issue under investigation by the Special Counsel. So, just what would he testify to?
How will the Democrats use him? And using him is the proper term. He will be discarded once he no longer can help their cause just as Christine Blasey Ford was when she was no longer useful.
It seems that the next act in this circus took place last week. Through his lawyer:
So just as Ms. Ford feared for her family’s safety, Michael Cohen supposedly fears for his because the President and his attorney “threatened” him. This is setting the stage for the next act.
It seems clear that witness tampering, witness intimidation and obstruction of justice are Cohen’s role in this. Cohen will claim that, because he is afraid for his family, he will resist testifying and the Dems on the committee will claim that PDJT and his attorneys interfered with the process. This will be part of building the narrative for impeachment.
Again this also plays into the narrative the Dems want to build about PDJT being a bad man. Keep putting fake news items out there and maybe some of it will stick in the public’s mind. It is also used to keep their base from looking too closely at the Dems and what they are doing.
And remember this is only act one. There will be more such acts as we move forward.
This is the modern Democratic Party.