Dems tread cautiously around Trump impeachment after Iran strikes

Since the U.S. attack on Iran, congressional Democrats and opponents of President Donald Trump called the operation unconstitutional and vowed to rein-in the president. But another impeachment — which the president says he fears if Democrats retake the U.S. House — hasn’t seriously entered the conversation.

That may change post-midterms if the party wins the House and Republicans lose their grip on both chambers of Congress plus the White House. Trump knows he would be in Democratic crosshairs and has expressed fear of a third impeachment to congressional Republicans, telling them to they need to win in November.

“If you swing at him, you want to make sure that you don’t miss,” Jared Leopold, a Democratic strategist who has worked on the Hill and for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said in an interview.

House Democrats convened last week to hash out strategy for this year, meeting before the new Iran war — which Trump began without seeking congressional approval — gave another potential grounds to seek impeachment.

Impeachment tends to be unpopular with voters, and there is concern in some Democratic corners that past attempts to rein-in Trump have not resonated. He was impeached by the U.S. House in 2019 over allegations that he withheld military aid to Ukraine to exert political pressure and in 2021 over his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2020 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Both times the Senate voted to acquit.

But if Democrats win back the House, there will likely be serious pressure to impeach Trump a third time. No other president has been impeached twice.

“We’re not afraid of impeachment or any other constitutional tool in our arsenal, but we have learned that impeachment is no panacea,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in an interview before the operation in Iran. 

“It’s not a fetish with us, but it’s also not a taboo with us,” Raskin said. “If we think that this will be the most effective way to address some of the crises of the republic that have been unleashed by President Trump or particular members of his cabinet, then it will have to be considered.”

Given that any talk of impeachment is purely symbolic with Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate, Leopold said he did not expect to see any groundswell of impeachment talk in the short term.

“You’ve seen some come out at various points, using the ‘I word’ usually as sort of an attention seeking device,” Leopold said. “People mostly want to see Democrats fight back in a way that has real world impact. … Sometimes if you’re a football team, you want to hand the ball off and get first downs instead of trying to go for a Hail Mary every play.”

While the Iran attack didn’t bring a deluge of new impeachment calls,…