Most Americans oppose impeaching President Donald Trump, according to a new Monmouth University poll released Thursday.
59% of those surveyed said that Trump should not be compelled to leave office via impeachment. Of course, along party lines things look a bit different – with 72% of Democrats responding that an impeachment inquiry is a good idea, followed by 39% of independents and 8% of Republicans, according to USA Today.
Weeks ago, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) confirmed that his panel was launching an impeachment inquiry, which he referred to as “formal impeachment proceedings. That said, there has been no actual vote in the House or in the Judiciary Committee to open or approve an impeachment inquiry, so Nadler is exploring whether impeachment is something House Democrats might consider.
In March, Nadler announced that his committee would investigate “alleged obstruction of justice, public corruption, and other abuses of power by President Trump, his associates, and members of his Administration,” sending a series of document requests and subpoenas for testimony in the hopes of turning over stones to cobble together an argument for impeachment in the wake of the Mueller report.
For months, pro-impeachment members of the Judiciary Committee demanded the opening of an impeachment inquiry— and Nadler reportedly pushed Pelosi to let him do it behind the scenes (while remaining noncommittal in public). And media organizations counted the increasing number of Democrats saying they supported an inquiry.
But in late July, the pro-impeachment House faction shifted its rhetorical strategy. They began arguing that, actually, they don’t even need to open a formal impeachment inquiry. They (accurately) pointed out that there’s no rule requiring such a thing — the current Judiciary Committee doesn’t need extra subpoena power and they can technically write and vote on articles of impeachment whenever they want.
Around this time, Nadler also announced with great fanfare that, as part of his committee’s court effort to gain access to Mueller’s grand jury material, he said the House needed to “consider whether” to approve “articles of impeachment.” But when asked if his probe should now be categorized as that long-awaited “impeachment inquiry,” Nadler demurred, saying “too much has been made of” that particular phrase. –Vox
According to a Thursday report in the Washington Post, 132 House Democrats say that at minimum, they support opening an impeachment inquiry into whether Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeansors.”
Meanwhile, according to the Monmouth poll of 800 adults between August 16-20, 20% of Americans think the Senate would vote to remove Trump from office if the House passed articles of impeachment, while almost one-third of those polled agree with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that a formal impeachment process that failed to remove Trump would strengthen his chances of re-election.
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