The failure of House Democrats to impeach President Trump has aroused the ire of billionaire Tom Steyer, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest contributors and a leading proponent of impeachment.
Steyer is out with a new million-dollar ad (watch above) that puts him clearly at odds with party leaders, especially House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — who, the Washington Post reports, “privately told Democrats to stick to policy and forget about an impeachment inquiry, and not a single Democrat uttered a word in protest.”
Steyer isn’t having it.
.@SpeakerPelosi, this week, our @Need2Impeach volunteers delivered 36,000 constituent signatures to your office demanding impeachment hearings. Your singular emphasis on tactics is normalizing Mr. Trump's worst behavior. When you say you'll never impeach, he is listening.
— Tom Steyer (@TomSteyer) May 16, 2019
At the heart of the ad, Steyer berates the Democrats for inaction:
“Our founding fathers expected you — Congress — to hold a lawless president accountable. And you’re doing nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He broke his oath of office. He’s defying you. Laughing at you. And he’s getting away with it.”
Charlie Pierce: Jerry Nadler's Interview on Trump Impeachment Suggests House Democrats Will Shirk Constitutional Duty https://t.co/PDWCf7R0ak
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) May 16, 2019
The Washington Post writes that “whether you support an impeachment inquiry right now, there’s no way to describe the broader strategy that Democrats have adopted on the impeachment question as a success. It’s been a muddled mess.”
In his ad, Steyer concedes that one argument against acting is that the Republican-held Senate wouldn’t convict Trump, “so full accountability is impossible.”
But, he says, that does not take into account “the downside of not acting.”
The “core question,” Steyer says, “is whether it is acceptable for Democrats to refrain from an impeachment inquiry in the face of corruption and misconduct they plainly believe merits one.”