Incoming House Speaker Jeffries: No Impeachment for Trump. Other Democrats: Subpoenas Ahead.
Incoming Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) has thrice said that impeaching President Donald Trump will not be a top priority in the new Congress.
Indeed, at a news conference after the GOP was shellacked on Tuesday, Jeffries claimed that not one House Democrat has discussed it with him. Those selfless guardians of the public weal, he said, are focused on “affordability and accountability.”
Impeachment aside, those Democrats are “focused” on one thing: Spending the next two years “investigating” President Trump and his family.
Jeffries: No Revenge
At the post-election presser, Jeffries was unequivocal.
“I haven’t had a single member of the House Democratic Caucus talk to me about impeachment,” he said. “We’ve been relentlessly focused on affordability and on accountability.”
He was also clear on Morning Joe.
“The American people don’t want us to get even,” he told host Joe Scarborough and his wife, Mika Brzezinski:
They want us to get things done on their behalf because life is way too expensive.
We ran on affordability, we won on affordability, and now it’s our job to govern on affordability.
On Fox News Sunday, two days before the GOP went down the drain, Jeffries said the same thing.
“Of course not,” he said, when asked whether impeachment led the list of the Democrats’ agenda items.
“I’ve made clear from the very beginning that our top priority is going to be to drive down the high cost of living,” he added:
We believe in this country, you work hard, you play by the rules. You should be able to live an affordable life, a comfortable life, in fact, to live the good life, and that means a good paying job and good housing, good health care, good education for your children, and when it’s all said and done, a good retirement.
Subpoenas, Subpoenas, Subpoenas
But Jeffries’ Democratic colleagues are more focused on wrecking Trump than “affordability.” Immediately after the election was called, they filled social media with calls for subpoenas and investigations.
“Subpoenas,” wrote Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon in a one-word X post.
“We’re going to toss out subpoenas like Mardi Gras beads,” wrote Representative Analilia Mejia of New Jersey. Not surprisingly, she’s the daughter of immigrants.
Wrote Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey:
They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing.
“Thank you, Mr. President. Our thank you will come in January — with subpoenas,” wrote Arizona’s Representative Yassamin Ansari. Ansari is the daughter of Iranian immigrants.
Representative Robert Garcia of California, a Peruvian immigrant and another non-American in Congress, had two words: “LAWYER UP.”
Representative James Walkinshaw of Virginia elaborated on MS NOW, the Democratic Party’s propaganda megaphone. He summarized on X:
Trump and his cronies got comfortable screwing over the American people.
Voters just ended that.
Democrats will investigate. We will subpoena. We will make anyone who ripped you off answer for it.
“THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!” wrote Representative Mike Levin of California:
Subpoenas. Investigations. Actual Accountability. A WORKING CONGRESS.
Get ready, my friends. You demanded change, and you gave us the power to deliver it.
I cannot WAIT to get to work.
To top it off, the House Judiciary Committee is advertising for new staffers. “These positions will assist with the Committee’s policy, oversight, investigative, and legislative work on various subject matters within our jurisdiction,” the ad says. Topping the list of jobs the committee will do: “Oversight/Investigations.”
Turley’s Take
“The conditions on the Hill are only likely to make such rage politics more appealing with the new Congress,” George Washington University law Professor Jonathan Turley wrote:
Despite the large margin secured in the House, it is not enough to overcome a veto requiring two-thirds of both houses. While impeachment also requires a two-thirds vote for conviction, investigations will be a delivery item to offer the base as proof of action in the deadlocked conditions that will unfold on the Hill.
The Democrats are so enraged they are even going after their own, he noted separately, with Soviet-style rhetoric.
“Haley Stevens is a dangerous woman” who is “now being portrayed as unstable and menacing by her self-described friends” because she endorsed Michigan’s incumbent Republican Senator Mike Rogers against Muslim Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, Turley wrote:
Haley Stevens has the misfortune of now being an object lesson for anyone who stands against the far left. They are going to “hoist the wretch” for all to see to deter anyone else standing in the way of the mob. …
After she declared that she would split her ticket and vote for Mike Rogers over Abdul El-Sayed, Democrats across the country declared her mentally ill. Some used the attack literally, feigning deep concern over her safety — the way that you describe a friend found raving on the subway about being probed by aliens.
Lawyer George Conway encouraged her to check into a mental facility immediately. He is, after all, a Juris Doctor.
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D., Md.) explained to CNN in the tone of an intervention that “I have been worried about her all last week. She’s a human being.”
Former Republican Bill Kristol was more direct that Stevens “seems to have had some kind of breakdown or something.”
Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan said that Stevens is “clearly a disturbed, deranged, dishonest woman.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Turley explained, is a top target for impeachment, although far-left Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York apparently doesn’t favor impeaching Trump and putting him on trial again.
“The Democrats ran on fighting corruption and will now work to prove the point,” Turley concluded:
They will have to fulfill the narrative and parade a line of targets before these Committees. Pundits like Jennifer Welch have even demanded calling in Barron and Tiffany Trump in this cathartic crackdown.
Hegseth won’t be waiting long for impeachment. Outgoing GOP Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky told CNN he plans to get a vote on impeaching Hegseth next week. “Multiple GOP sources said they expect it to pass,” the network reported.
“There is one contingency in which I won’t reintroduce the articles of impeachment,” Massie wrote on X — “Hegseth resigns.”
Massie introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth in September. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) recessed Congress not only to avoid a vote on Massie’s measure, but also to duck Massie’s Epstein Files Transparency Act.