The release of the special counsel report on Russian interference in the 2016 election marks the end of political shadow-boxing over a secret investigation of President Donald Trump and the beginning of open warfare over whether he should be reelected in 2020. The long-awaited report from Robert S Mueller III will almost certainly inflame partisan passions on both sides, even if it changes few voters’ minds about Trump. And it will pose new challenges to Democratic presidential candidates, who have mostly steered clear of the Russia investigation to develop distinctive brands that stand for more than opposing the president.
The problem for Democrats is that the report, while damning and shocking in parts, was not a death blow for Trump and that mixed message threatens to split the party. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts last Friday became the first major presidential candidate to demand impeachment hearings.
“The severity of (Trump’s) misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty,” Warren said on Twitter. “That means the Houses hould initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States.”
Other Democratic presidential candidates have been more cautious, and party leaders in Congress have shown no appetite for impeachment. Congressional leaders are reluctant to begin a fraught, highly partisan process in the House that will almost certainly die in the Republican-controlled Senate.
That means that, unless the momentum for impeachment shifts dramatically, Trump’s fate most likely will be decided by voters in the 2020 election, not on Capitol Hill. And that is just fine with most of the huge crop of Democratic presidential candidates.
The challenge for them continues to be how to construct a campaign message that can attract the swing voters needed in the general election while still stoking the enthusiasm of Democratic activists who crave Trump-bashing.
“For the core of the Democratic base, (the Mueller investigation) is insatiable red meat. For nonpartisan voters, it’s not clear how much they care anymore,” said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic political strategist neutral in the 2020 primary season.
“The reality is that being anti-Trump, no matter how justified, is not a winning strategy, because if it was, Hillary Clinton would have been elected.”
The political crosscurrents buffeting Democratic candidates in the post-Mueller landscape were in evidence as they campaigned after the report’s release. Candidates put out statements and fielded questions from reporters, but few voters asked about it.
“It’s certainly not at the top of mind of most voters around the country,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said to The Des Moines Register while campaigning in Iowa. “They’re concerned about their families, and that’s why I’ve put together a huge platform on really robust ideas and bold visions on how we’re going to get stuff done.”
Even Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of Trump on the campaign trail, stopped short of calling for impeachment in the written statement he issued. And he said nothing about the investigation in his late-day campaign appearance in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he focused on education and criminal justice reform.
Despite heavy coverage on cable TV and Twitter about embarrassing details in the redacted report, what once promised to be a potent weapon for Democrats turned out to be a mixed bag.
The report made clear that Trump and his campaign welcomed Russian efforts to sway the election on his behalf even though it involved a hostile intelligence service operating on US soil. But Mueller did not find conclusive evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
Mueller also documented multiple occasions when the president tried to undermine or kill the investigation, but he made no judgement on whether Trump committed the crime of obstructing justice. — Reuters
Janet Hook
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