Impeachment Continued: The Power of the Subpoena and the Poll

At the time of the inaugural article of the whistleblower complaint and subsequent impeachment inquiry of President Trump, the White House had yet commented on the House Democrats’ move to look toward impeaching the 45th president. News had just begun to break of the President’s potential abuse of power, and few polls had been taken on the subject of ousting the nation’s leader.

Since the beginning of October, however, national polls, including one from Monmouth University which polled a significant population to represent all Americans, have been conducted, and they narrate statistically the support growing for Donald Trump’s impeachment. Monmouth University’s poll, released just a few weeks ago, found that 49 percent of voters support impeachment, only short of a simple majority of voters by two percent. Nonetheless, another poll regarding the impeachment inquiry, performed by Quinnipiac University, found that the majority of registered voters supported the inquiry. The polls show two different statistics, but one is not far off from the other. Though Monmouth’s poll fails to meet a 50-51 percent majority, what it still does portray is that House Democrats would not necessarily have to convert or persuade many Republicans to support Trump’s impeachment.

House and Senate Republicans face the dilemma of figuring out where President Trump’s actions draw the line. They faced the same dilemma with President Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Despite Trump’s actions-past, present, and predictable future- will he still garner enough support from House Republicans not to impeach him, or enough support in the Senate to not be convicted? The answer, previously, may have been a resounding yes for the Senate. President Trump would not receive enough support in the House not to be impeached, for, at the time of the whistleblower’s complaint breaking, impeachment had already received support from 218 House members. That number has since gone up.

For the Senate, however, there may be a different narrative. Many Republican Senators, who have spent the better part of Trump’s term in his back pocket, came out against the President on his order to remove U.S. troops from Kurdish territory in northern Syria and allowing for Turkish troops, long opponents of the Kurds, to invade their land. The President, in ordering U.S. troops home, has jeopardized the Kurds, who have long been strong allies of the U.S., and who have, up until recently, been the biggest aide to U.S. troops in fighting off and suppressing the Islamic State. Senators such as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who called Trump’s order “shortsighted” and “irresponsible” on Fox & Friends on October 7, 2019, have come forward to declare their disdain for Trump’s current foreign policy moves.

Many speculate that this act of jeopardizing Kurdish allies and paving the way for the Islamic State to ramp back up will cost the President some support against impeachment and conviction in the Senate. Will this draw a hard line for Senate Republicans to break their support for the President?

News broke late Sunday morning that, following Trump’s order to send U.S. troops home and abandon Kurdish allies, hundreds of Islamic State supporters escaped from a detention camp, formerly patrolled by the Kurds to suppress support for ISIS. Yet to react to any of these developments, elected officials may find that these events may outline and illustrate growing support to oust the President in both the House, who has already effectively reached majority support, and in the Senate.

This week, the House will hear testimony from a few individuals, including Fiona Hill and Gordon Sondland. Many witnesses will also face subpoena deadlines to testify in front of the House, like Energy Secretary Rick Perry, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, as well as Vice President Mike Pence and associates of the President’s personal attorney and former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani. 

The House Democrats hope that these upcoming subpoenas and testimonies will shape even broader support for impeachment of the President.

This is an ongoing and developing story.