Well, I did not see this coming.
House Democrats are pissed at Rep. Shri Thanedar for filing impeachment charges against President Trump, and four Democrats who signed on as co-sponsors have withdrawn their support.
I love this quote from one anonymous Dem: “Why would we do something that has failed twice as a strategy and yielded no electoral win? The guy got impeached twice, how did it work out for us?”
Damn straight!
Here’s more from Axios:
Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) has set off an internal furor among House Democrats with his unsanctioned efforts to impeach President Trump, Axios has learned.
In addition to many House Democrats seeing the push as both premature and counterproductive, some are also chafing at Thanedar’s tactics in drumming up support for his impeachment articles.
Four House Democrats who were briefly listed as co-sponsors have all since withdrawn, with some saying they wrongly believed leadership was supporting the measure.
Sources told Axios that Thanedar also signed at least one colleague on as a co-sponsor based on a vague one-on-one conversation without notifying their staff.
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Jim Himes (D-Conn.), asked whether Thanedar’s efforts are being taken seriously by leadership, told Axios, “I don’t think so.”
“There is a long, long, long way to go before the concept of impeachment is on the table,” he added.
Said House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.): “The fact that people have withdrawn … suggests people wanted to think through, collectively, the timing of it.”
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who introduced rogue impeachment articles against Trump in 2017, told Axios there is “no question he has committed impeachable offenses, and a fair jury might convict him, but not a jury in the Senate. It’s a big messaging piece.”
Privately, House Democrats are being far less conciliatory. “This is a self-own that … fundamentally undermines our capacity to continue to have a conversation with people we need to win over,” one told Axios on the condition of anonymity.
Said another House Democrat: “Why would we do something that has failed twice as a strategy and yielded no electoral win? The guy got impeached twice, how did it work out for us?”
A third told Axios: “It seems self-serving and not a genuine effort to reign in the president.”
Many lawmakers speculated that there is a clear connection between the McKinney’s run and the impeachment push.
Others grumbled about Thanedar’s use of official congressional funds to pay for billboards in his district promoting his efforts, with one senior House Democrat saying that aspect “has everyone upset.”