Thread by @dcpetterson

Should the House vote Articles of Impeachment?

Let's agree:
1) Trump is a felon
2) He committed treason
3) His crimes are impeachable
4) If he wasn't president, he would be indicted

Q: What should Democrats do?
A: It's not as simple as it seems.

1/25

If you say,, "I will vote for anyone who will primary Democrats who don't vote for impeachment NOW!" just stop reading and block me.

The rest of you, hear me out. This isn't a simple question, and a misstep would be fatal--not only for Democrats, but for democracy.

2/25

Here's the nightmare:

The House enacts Articles of Impeachment. GOP Senators don't convict because of course they wouldn't, GOPers portray this as exoneration--Trump is innocent and Democrats are blind partisans. Trump wins a second term and fascists retake the House.

3/25

A Republican landslide in 2020 means the end of America. It means the dismantling of the Constitution. The future of that is so bleak it cannot be imagined. Believe me, I've tried. I write dark fantasy. Imagining that crap is my thing. Even I can't do it.

4/25

MAYBE if we are a little bit patient....

Mueller is assembling an airtight case for everything he does. Every indictment, every guilty plea, *every one* of the all-too-seldom statements his office makes, are incontrovertible.

5/25

If Mueller concludes Trump is a felon and committed impeachable crimes, that conclusion will be inescapable.

He has already concluded that Trump conspired with Michael Cohen to violate federal campaign finance laws. That's a felony.

6/25

For any common citizens, that would already merit an indictment and a prison sentence. For any other president, it would already have produced articles of impeachment.

But Mueller hasn't even named Trump in his court filings. It's all about "Individual 1". Why?

7/25

Why?

Because there is far more coming. That is obvious.

Mueller has revealed the Trump Campaign negotiated with Russia on a Trump Tower Moscow through most of 2016, a deal that would have netted Trump hundreds of millions of dollars.

8/25

This deal required financing from sanctioned Russian banks, which would have required the lifting of sanctions against Russia.

That's what the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 was about--asking Don Jr, Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner to commit to lift sanctions ...

9/25

... in return for Russia providing "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of stolen emails, for the purpose of helping Trump get elected, so he could lift those sanctions.

*Everyone* in the Trump Organization has lied UNDER OATH about EVERY aspect of this.

10/25

Including Michael Flynn, who talked to the Russian ambassador about lifting those sanctions, on the very day of Trump's inauguration.

With the full knowledge of Trump's transition team.

Including Mike Pence, who was in charge of the transition.

11/25

Oh, and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell were aware of all this, because the Intel Community briefed them on it before the election. McConnell stopped details of this from being revealed to the public.

Ryan and McConnell are complicit in Trump's treason.

12/25

That complicity ensures McConnell will NEVER allow the Senate to remove Trump from office, no matter how compelling the proof is that Mueller eventually presents.

Any why hasn't Muller spelled it all out yet? There's a reason for that.

13/25

The narrative I laid out is all available in bits and pieces in the various filings that Mueller has made, including such details as the NAMES of the Russian agents and techies who were responsible for stealing emails from the DNC and from John Podesta.

14/25

But Mueller has so far not presented a single coherent narrative. It;s all in bits.

Nor has he ever, in any of the documents, NAMED Trump or his relatives.

Why not?

Because there is more. There is more proof, there is more evidence, and there are more crimes.

15/25

Whenever a filing finally comes out that actually names Trump or any of his children, or Ryan or Nunes or Rohrabacher or Pence or McConnell--

--on THAT DAY--

--the investigation will be shut down.

16/25

And it is not time yet to end it.

Because there are more crimes to be revealed. More evidence. More proof.

America needs the whole story, and we don't yet have it.

So how does this relate to the incoming Democratic House?

17/25

They can do investigations. They can have public testimony. They can help reveal these crimes. They can provide more data to Mueller, and can let us see some of what Mueller knows.

We NEED this data. The world needs it. We need it ALL to save democracy.

18/25

But on the day that the House enacts Articles of Impeachment--

--on that very day--

--it all ends.

Because the Senate will never take up the question.

Because Mitch McConnell is a co-conspirator, and he won't allow it.

19/25

The only choice is for the House to do its public investigations, and for Mueller to continue his filings and his indictments, until the final day when Mueller is ready to reveal Names.

I don't know when that will be. It doesn't matter.

20/25

The growing drumbeat of all this leaking out--one hearing at a time, one indictment at a time, one filing at a time--will continue to weaken the Fascist Party, in a way that ending it all with an inevitable-to-fail impeachment vote won't.

21/25

As all this goes on, we MUST build toward 2020, toward retaking the Senate, and toward a Democratic president.

We spent two years engineering a retake of the House.

We have to continue that effort.

22/25

Maybe the drip-drip--and occasional flood--of data will begin to sway Republican Senators.

We need TWENTY of them to remove Trump. We must remove Pence, too.

How likely is that?

We need to sway a bunch of GOPer House members, too, because...

23/25

... if we don't, even the stupid fucking moron media will portray the whole thing as a Democrat partisan petty ploy, and then we get to the nightmare scenario I started this thread with.

24/25

Let's be smart. Let's make fucking sure everything comes out. Let's be loud and active and patient

and smart.

We've already stymied the Fascist agenda by retaking the House. Let's not fucking blow this.

25/25