Nancy Pelosi Faces Democrat Civil War over Impeachment

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has increasingly clashed with Democrats who want to impeach President Donald Trump despite her opposition to the move.

Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), and Joe Neguse (D-CO), all members of House Democrat leadership, pushed to begin impeachment proceedings during a leadership meeting in Pelosi’s office Monday night.

Pelosi and Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Cheri Bustos (D-IL), all strong Pelosi allies, rejected the calls. Many of them contended that impeachment will drown out the Democrats’ message.

Raskin, a former law professor, said he did not want to advocate for impeaching Trump but rather to open an impeachment inquiry, which would allegedly strengthen their legal position while allowing Democrats to continue to pass partisan bills through the House.

Pelosi dismissed Raskin’s notion, asking the Maryland congressman whether he wanted to shut down the Democrats’ five committee investigations into the Trump administration to focus on a potential House Judiciary impeachment inquiry.

Citing House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Pelosi asked, “You want to tell Elijah Cummings to go home?”

In a separate meeting with the Democrat Steering and Policy Committee, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) reportedly stood up and demanded Trump’s impeachment.

“This is not about politics, it’s about what’s best for the American people,” Pelosi said, replying to Cohen.

Although Speaker Pelosi and her Democrat leadership allies have insisted that the majority of House Democrats do not want to impeach the president, she faces increasing pressure from the most hardcore Democrat colleagues.

Many lawmakers and Democrat aides have suggested House Judiciary Democrats could introduce an impeachment inquiry resolution within the next week or two, which could lead to more infighting between Pelosi and the pro-impeachment Democrats.

The House speaker also tried to reassure rank-and-file Democrats by pointing to Democrats’ legal victory against the president Monday; the Trump administration tried to block Democrats’ issuing a subpoena for financial documents relating to the president.

Pelosi said, “What we said when we started is that these [investigations] will yield information to us. Today, we won our first case. We’ve been in this thing for almost five months, and now we’re getting some results.”

House Speaker Pelosi and her allies face an increasing appetite amongst rank-and-file Democrats for impeachment, which could stifle their policy priorities and could even give Trump an advantage in 2020 if the president were to survive impeachment.

However, despite the increased clamor for impeachment, Pelosi said that Democrats remain united.

“There’s no divide,” Pelosi said. “We’re fine.”