Democrats pivoting to new line of attack on Trump after GOP-controlled Senate blocked ouster: report

Accepting that the GOP-controlled Senate will never agree to oust Donald Trump from the Oval Office no matter what articles of impeachment are presented to the Republican members, Democrats are refocusing their efforts to go after the president in an election year by bringing Trump's refusal to admit foreign interference in the election to the forefront.

According to Politico, Democratic leadership is frustrated by the fact that Republicans have embraced Trump despite obvious evidence of corruption, so they are pivoting to new lines of attack that don't include impeachment.

"There is nothing that Donald Trump can do that would cause [Senate Republicans] to convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors," said House Judiciary Committee lawmaker Jamie Raskin (D-MD), admitted. "So that has caused everybody in the House to take a deep breath and figure out what our next steps are. That leaves us legislative and political answers."

According to the report, "In other words, the end of the impeachment process has become the advent of a new, narrower focus on what Democrats say is a crucial theme revealed by their efforts: Trump's indifference to, or even encouragement of, foreign interference in the 2020 election. It's a throughline, they say, of Trump's behavior toward Russia, his treatment of Ukraine and his public comments on whether he would reject foreign help in future elections."

The report goes on to note that the Democratic leadership has drawn up battle plans to go after some of Trump's administration officials -- including some who might have stories to tell.

"Democrats on Friday dusted off their Trump oversight tools and took the first steps to confront the president's campaign of post-acquittal retribution," Politico reports. "House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) requested testimony from a slew of high-profile Justice Department officials about political interference in criminal cases — including four career prosecutors who quit the case of longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone earlier this month after the president intervened in his sentencing."

According to Patrick Boland, a spokesman for the Intelligence Committee, investigations by House Democrats are ongoing.

“While we won’t specifically comment on any ongoing or new investigations that have not been publicly announced, the committee is continuing to pursue a number of investigations, along with the committee’s important oversight work focused on ensuring that our intelligence community is protecting the nation and our upcoming elections are free and fair," he said.

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