Opinion: Pelosi’s impeachment comments weren’t a surprise to anyone who listened
By Karen Tumulty Karen Tumulty Columnist covering national politics Email Bio Follow Columnist March 12 at 6:32 PM House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was well aware she was going to create a sensation when she made a pronouncement to my colleague Joe Heim during an interview last week.
It was indeed newsworthy when The Washington Post Magazine published those comments Monday. But it was not a surprise to hear Pelosi raise this sensible cautionary note — at least, not to anyone who has paid attention to her style of leadership. The questionable actions of this president and his administration are so numerous that no fewer than six House committees have claims to jurisdiction over various aspects of them. Pelosi’s aides meet regularly with all of them to make sure they are staying in their lanes.
Pelosi accomplished an astonishing amount in the four years that Democrats held the House, including the high-wire legislating it took to deliver the Affordable Care Act to President Barack Obama’s desk in 2010. But this achievement, done with no Republican votes, came at a high cost; her party was turned out of power later that year.
Pelosi also recognizes that impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. The framers of the Constitution put it in the hands of elected officials, declined to define what constitutes the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that would be grounds for a president’s removal and set a high bar for conviction: a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate.
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