What Went Down On Day 1 Of The Impeachment Hearings

Schiff began his opening remarks by framing the impeachment inquiry in the context of American foreign policy. We know from polling, though, that Americans aren’t prioritizing foreign policy and even national security at the moment. They care much more about what Gallup calls “poor leadership.” It will be interesting to watch the balance in these hearings between framing this as poor leadership/corruption versus a foreign policy/national security issue.

“Must we simply get over it? … If this is not impeachable conduct, what is?” says Schiff. It goes to the point that Schiff was one of the Democrats — along with Pelosi — who had been weary of impeachment for much of the year. The Ukraine situation basically forced some of the Democrats to move toward impeachment.

Democrats have basically given up on forcing the White House to cooperate with their subpoenas through court battles, which they might win, but would take months to conclude. So as Perry mentioned, they appear to be trying to weaponize Trump’s stonewalling against him by including it in an article of impeachment.