Don’t buy the conventional wisdom on impeachment

BloombergOpinion Early Returns

Jonathan Bernstein

Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. The conventional wisdom is getting a bit ahead of itself on impeachment.  I'm not predicting that President Donald Trump will be removed from office; that's probably not going to happen. But there's a big difference between probably and certainly. And after two weeks of public impeachment hearings, it seems to me that a certainty has set in: that there's simply no way that Republicans will ever turn on Trump.  Perhaps! It's true that congressional Republicans seem to be more solidly behind Trump than ever. In particular, Representative Will Hurd, who might've been the most likely member of the party to vote for impeachment and take a few others with him, seems to have decided against it. The most likely outcome may still be a close-to-party-line impeachment in the House and acquittal in the Senate. But remember that conservative Republicans stuck with President Richard Nixon in 1974 … right up until they didn't. Trump's seemingly unanimous support right now is similar to the backing that Nixon had even as his original cover-up collapsed in early 1973; as the Senate Watergate committee hearings dominated that summer; as the Saturday Night Massacre unfolded in October; and as the House judiciary committee debated and voted on specific articles of impeachment in 1974. And then: The smoking gun tape came out and it all collapsed immediately. Even Nixon's strongest supporter on the judiciary committee, the Jim Jordan of the day, who had just vigorously defended the president during televised deliberations, flipped and said he'd vote to impeach on the House floor.  That suggests Nixon's support was never as solid as it seemed. Which in turn suggests we just can't know how firm Trump's support is among congressional Republicans this time. Perhaps they're prepared for the worst and determined to stick with the president no matter what. But history tells me that we don't know for sure — and that it's quite possible that they don't know for sure what they'll ultimately do. Again: I'm not predicting anything. But just since the last hearing, new evidence has emerged showing how the White House tried to  justify a delay in delivering military aid to Ukraine; Rudy Giuliani's indicted associate Lev Parnas has turned over recordings and other material to the House intelligence committee; one of Trump's conspiracy theories about the FBI's investigation into his 2016 campaign has apparently collapsed; and Democrats have started probing the possibility that Trump lied to former special counsel Robert Mueller. Moreover, the chaotic ouster of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer on Sunday shows that Trump remains quite capable of doing damage to himself, and gives another reason for Republicans who care about the traditional values of the U.S. military to think twice about backing him.  It all adds up to a lot more uncertainty than many people seem to appreciate.  1. David Campbell and Christina Wolbrecht at the Monkey Cage on one important effect of more women running for office. 2. Rick Hasen on the possibility that a Senate impeachment trial would wind up being mainly about former Vice President Joe Biden. 3. Nandini Deo and Amy Erica Smith at Mischiefs of Faction on secularism and democracy in India. 4. Daniel Nichanian on felony disenfranchisement. 5. Adam Serwer on understanding what Trump was up to in Ukraine. 6. And Monica Hesse on listening to Marie Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close.

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