The decision by House Democrats to move forward with an impeachment inquiry against President Trump in the wake of a whistleblower complaint is threatening to derail a packed fall agenda.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) move on Tuesday to formally begin an inquiry came after a frenzy on Capitol Hill, where a whistleblower complaint reportedly linked to President Trump’s actions quickly overshadowed high-profile legislative battles.
{mosads}Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who was a member of the upper chamber during the then-President Clinton impeachment trials, warned that an impeachment inquiry would become the “order of the day,” likely having a trickle-down effect on a long to-do list awaiting Congress before the end of the year.
“It could. Everything. If they were to go down that road, it would sure take priority,” Shelby said, asked if an impeachment inquiry would grind the legislative agenda to a halt. “If they were to go down that road, it would be the order of the day.”
Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), a member of the GOP leadership, warned that the impeachment inquiry would “suck all the oxygen out of this place.”
“It’s clear to me that the Democrats’ disdain for the president exceeds their desire to do things like prescription drugs … or a highway bill or pass trade agreements like the [United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement]. This is going to make it almost impossible for us to do those things,” Cornyn added.
Congress is set to leave town for a two-week recess on Thursday. When they return they’ll face a Nov. 21 deadline to fund the government — an uphill fight given that the Senate hasn’t yet passed a single fiscal 2020 spending bill.
They also have a looming end-of-the-year fight on surveillance reforms, as well as negotiations over potential prescription drug legislation, and Republicans are growing increasingly antsy about the chances of passing Trump’s trade deal with Mexico and Canada.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday faced multiple impeachment-related questions during their respective weekly press conferences — even before Pelosi formally announced the impeachment inquiry.
McConnell tried to shut down a question about what the Senate would do if the House sends over articles of impeachment, calling it “quite premature.”
“Wait a minute. What we have here is an allegation related to Ukrainian aid by a whistleblower. That’s about all we know now. … I’m not going to address all of these various hypotheticals that have been aired,” he said.
But previewing the likely months-long fight that will loom over any legislation, the president on Tuesday fired off a string of tweets targeting House Democrats.
“They never even saw the transcript of the call. A total Witch Hunt!” Trump wrote. “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!”
The decision to move forward with an impeachment inquiry against Trump comes amid reports that the president and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani pressured Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
Trump indicated over the weekend that he had brought up Biden during the call, but has denied allegations that he threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless they investigated the issue.
Trump on Tuesday agreed to release the transcript of his call, something congressional Republicans had urged him to do. But that did not slow momentum for impeachment that had been building for days.
The days-long swirl over the whistleblower complaint has already claimed one legislative agenda item. Senators involved with negotiating a potential deal on background checks for gun sales with the Trump administration say they’ve largely gotten radio silence from the White House since last week.
“Unsurprisingly, we haven’t heard anything from the White House since Wednesday night. I think they’ve been consumed by this crisis over the weekend, so it would not be shocking to me if we didn’t hear anything on any other issue besides this one,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).
When a reporter noted that Congress is about to leave for two weeks, he added, “I think some other issues have gotten in the way of our background checks negotiations. … My feeling is they don’t have a lot of room to move legislative business this week.”
{mossecondads}Murphy and Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) have been locked in talks for weeks with the White House to try to get an agreement in the wake of a recent spate of mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso and Odessa, Texas.
Attorney General William Barr met with Republicans about a potential proposal to expand background checks last week, and also huddled with Murphy, Manchin and Toomey last week.
White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland, who was at the Senate GOP lunch on Tuesday, said talks were ongoing with lawmakers, but said they didn’t view the two-week recess as a make-or-break deadline for the chances of getting a deal.
“We continue to be engaged with the Hill. We’re still working to try to explore if there are paths forward,” Ueland told reporters. “It’s not so much a question of whether or not they’re physically here.”
Manchin said on Tuesday he had not heard from the White House since last week.
Asked how the whistleblower scandal was impacting gun negotiations, Manchin responded, “Things have been kind of quiet.”