On Wednesday, the House of Representatives will do its constitutional duty and pass two (why only two?) Articles of Impeachment against Donald Trump.
Which means it’s up to Senate Majority Leader Addison Mitchell McConnell (R-Ky.), together with Chief Justice John Roberts, to schedule a trial in the Senate.
Soon.
As soon as Congressman Jeff Van Drew made it clear that he will vote on Wednesday against impeaching Trump, he left the Democratic Party and became a member of the Trumpistic Party (see https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/14/us/politics/jeff-van-drew-democrat-republican.html).
Van Drew, a dentist, represents a Congressional District in New Jersey in which Trump won more votes in 2016 than Hillary Clinton. The Republicans have been assiduously courting him so they can massage their message to the (wrong) effect that the Democrats have done a bad thing by impeaching the most felonious Oval Office occupant ever.
Early this morning, associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones, who is with Trump 24/7, was with Trump and Van Drew at the Resolute Desk as Trump administered a very strong sedative to Van Drew as he extracted Van Drew’s Democratic soul, and branded his forehand with Make America Something It Never Was.
Simultaneously, associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith, who covers Congress for us, spoke at great length with Congressman Justin Amash (I-Michigan), who left the Republican Party on Independence Day, 2019, and became one of only three Independents in the Congress. The other Independents are Sen. Angus King (Maine) and Bernie Sanders (Vermont).
Bernie's not a Democrat, but he’s in the Top Tier of Four candidates running for president against Trump. Bernie will be on the debate stage on Thursday. For many months now, associate solitary reporter Keith Coleman has been pestering DNC Chair Tom Perez, in vain, to get him to explain how that could possibly be.
Congressman Amash is the son of Attallah Amash, a Palestinian Christian who immigrated to the United States in 1956 through the sponsorthip of an American pastor and his family. His mother, Mimi, is a Syrian Christian (yes, sure enough, there really are some of those!). Mimi met Attalah through family friends in Damascus, and they were married in 1974.
Congressman Amash lives in Cascade Township, Michigan, near the Thornapple River. Because of his defection from the GOP, the Party of the Wealthy considers Amash to be the worst possible thorn in its side, so they are sure to find someone to run against him in November.
On October 31, 2019, he was the only non-Democrat in the House to vote in favor of an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s numerous misdeeds.
Amash has correctly called Trump a "childish bully", saying that his attacks would be "constructive in the fifth grade.”
All this is why Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues have been courting Amash to be their Top Prosecutor in the Senate against Trump.
As of press time, all we here at AP can tell you is that when and if Trump shows up in the well of the Senate next month, he will have with him Defense Secretary Mark Esper and many others.