Push to Politicize Impeachment May Backfire for Democrats in Midterms

Maxine Waters
Chip Somodevilla/AFP/Getty

The push by a number of prominent Democrats to completely politicize the impeachment process could backfire for them in the midterms, David Axelrod, the political adviser who helped elect Barack Obama to the Presidency in 2008, said on Sunday.

His comments came in a tweet one day before the FBI raided the offices of President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen:

On Tuesday, the day after that raid, Axelrod sent out a tweet with a more nuanced view of the “rush to impeachment.”

Far left billionaire Tom Steyer, who has dedicated $30 million to electing a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives for the express purpose of impeaching President Trump, thinks virtually any action taken by the President is an impeachable offense:

Renowned Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, however, told The Daily Mail on Tuesday that the FBI’s raid on Cohen’s office is unconstitutional:

A famed Harvard legal scholar is raising concerns about the Justice Department’s ability to responsibly handle some documents seized Monday from Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s offices.

Among the scooped-up papers, and lurking on phones and hard drives, is likely to be a cache of material that’s covered by attorney-client privilege.

Prosecutors are not permitted access to those files, and the DOJ’s standard practice is to set up a ‘taint team’ – a group of agents and lawyers not connected to the Cohen case or the special counsel probe into all things Russia – to decide what they can see.

But ‘taint teams don’t work,’ Alan Dershowitz told DailyMail.com on Tuesday, because seizing the material in the first place was a violation of Cohen’s constitutional rights – even if it’s never used in court.

The politicized impeachment frenzy, which strays far from the legal standards for impeachment found in the Constitution, may also have a potentially negative impact on voter preferences, who are increasingly viewing the far left impeachment advocates with skepticism.

A number of far left Democrats are attempting to make the 2018 Congressional midterm elections into a “do-over” for the failed 2016 presidential campaign of their nominee, Hillary Clinton.

While that “win at all costs” approach plays well with the far left base, voters who have a greater sense of civic duty–liberals, moderates, conservatives, and independents–have a more measured view.

A number of Democrats have been pushing for President Trump’s impeachment since the day he was inaugurated on January 20, 2017.

In October, the Democratic polling firm PPP reported their “newest national poll finds a record level of support for impeaching Donald Trump. 49% of voters support impeaching him, to 41% who are opposed to doing so. This marks the 6th month in a row we’ve found a plurality of voters in favor of impeaching Trump, and it’s the closest we’ve found to a majority.”

By February, PPP’s most recent poll showed that impeachment fever had lessened somewhat, with only 45 percent of voters supporting it and 44 percent of voters opposing it.

“The rising suspicion that special counsel Robert Mueller may not be able to build enough of a Russia collusion and/or corruption case to bring down the president himself, only some of his associates, has Democrats terrified and appalled,” Ted Rall wrote in a commentary at Rasmussen Reports last month, three weeks before the FBI raid of Cohen’s offices.

“Seventy percent of Democrats say they want the House of Representatives to hold impeachment hearings,” he noted.

“Everybody already knows that November is all about impeaching Trump. If the Democrats really want to win, the first promise in their national platform for the 2018 midterms ought to be a clear, unequivocal pledge to get rid of the president,” Rall concluded.

Over the past several weeks, the Democrats Generic Congressional Ballot advantage has fallen slightly to 7.5 percent, according to the Real Clear Politics Average of Polls.

The controversial FBI raid of the offices of President Trump’s personal attorney on Monday may fan the flames of the far left, but if voters agree with Professor Dershowitz that the action violated his constitutional rights, the Democrats Generic Congressional Ballot advantage may see a further dip, no matter how much far left Democrats cheer it on.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.