Rounds of charged exchanges and fist-pounding rants did little to lift the air inevitability that surrounded Thursday’s hearing. The battle lines were drawn long ago and the outcome was all-but assured.
Before the end of the day, the Democrats on the committee would almost certainly vote to send articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to the House floor. Republicans would almost certainly and uniformly oppose it.
Throughout the morning, lawmakers defaulted to the same, familiar arguments they’ve been making for five weeks. Democrats argued that the case before the committee was crystal clear and that they had a duty to hold the president for his corrupt actions.
Republicans argued that Democrats were blinded by their hatred of Trump, who, they contend publicly, did nothing wrong in his dealings with Ukraine.
There were flickers of drama, however. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat who has participated in three modern impeachment investigations, refuted Republicans’ claim that the process had been less fair than the Republican-led impeachment investigations of Bill Clinton.
Rep. Steve Chabot, a Republican, said that the “biggest difference in the Clinton impeachment and this one is that President Clinton committed a crime, perjury.” By contrast, he said, Trump hasn’t committed a crime.
“I would just like to note that the argument that somehow lying about a sexual affair is an abuse of presidential power, but the misuse of presidential power to get a benefit somehow doesn’t matter,” she said. “
If it’s lying about sex, we could put Stormy Daniels’s case ahead of us. We don’t believe that’s a high crime and misdemeanor. No. And it is not before us. And it should not be for us, because it’s not an abuse of presidential power.”
