Trump's Ukraine confession has Democrats lining up for impeachment

It looks like Donald Trump’s corrupt actions may finally be catching up to him, and impeachment may be much closer than he thinks. His blatantly corrupt attempt to have Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden may have finally been too much for too many Democrats.

After the bombshell revelations of the Mueller report led to no real consequences whatsoever for Trump, it appears he’s been emboldened to take increasingly depraved actions. Indeed, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pressure him about Biden only one day after former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress in late July. And for the last several days, it has looked as if his latest behavior wouldn’t cause him any trouble either.

But that was only true if Democrats in high-risk seats weren’t willing to take a stand in favor of impeachment and if Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi didn’t call for it. Now, everything is changing.

Monday night, a group of seven freshman Democrats — Reps. Gil Cisneros (D-CA), Jason Crow (D-CO), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), Elaine Luria (D-VA), Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) — penned a Washington Post op-ed saying that, if the allegations against Trump are true, “these actions represent an impeachable offense.” Given that Trump has completely admitted to pressuring Zelensky about Biden, it seems the allegations are indeed true.

All seven Democrats have backgrounds in national security, and many of them have everything to lose if an impeachment inquiry goes forward and conservative voters in their district take it out on them. Reps. Luria, Sherrill, Slotkin, and Spanberger all flipped districts that had gone for Trump in 2016. But, as they write in the op-ed, “everything we do harks back to our oaths to defend the country. These new allegations are a threat to all we have sworn to protect.”

On Monday night, other representatives who had previously not explicitly supported a call for impeachment made statements. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) tweeted, “After recent revelations, I support an impeachment inquiry because we must follow the facts and hold the President accountable.” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), who had previously resisted calls for impeachment, issued a statement saying Trump is “continuing to test the bounds of our laws and our Constitution” and that his behavior is “a reckless abuse of power that put his own interests ahead of those of the American people.”

It isn’t just rank-and-file members of the House that Trump has to worry about. After maintaining relative silence over the possibility of impeachment, Pelosi spent Monday night making calls to “gauge support” among Democrats, and her top leadership aides are now saying they think Trump’s impeachment is “almost inevitable.”

Trump has been counting on the fact that Pelosi and others wouldn’t budge. But now the dam is crumbling.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.