House Democrats believe they will collect enough damning evidence against President Donald Trump where they will have no choice but to impeach him -- but they're still scared that a failed attempt to remove Trump from office will only help him politically headed into 2020.
Politico reports that many Democrats believe impeaching Trump is "all but inevitable" at this point, but they want to make sure they shift public opinion toward them before taking action.
"[Mueller], plus the hearings we have, might produce enough information where some people will open their minds," Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) told Politico. "But right now, a can opener couldn’t get 'em open."
But Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) said that it would be wrong for Congress to simply ignore crimes just because Republicans seem intent on backing Trump no matter what he does.
"If the evidence points to impeachment, that's where we will go," he said. "If the evidence points to those crimes, then we should pursue it -- regardless of whether the tally at the end of the day will be enough to succeed in impeachment."
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said Democrats would need to shock and awe Republicans into submission where they would finally have to concede that Trump cannot be left in the Oval Office.
"You have to think, at the beginning of the process, that the evidence is so stark, the deed so terrible, that you believe that once it’s all laid out, then you will be able to get an appreciable fraction," he said. "If you do it, you don’t [want to] have half the country saying for the next 30 years: We won the election, you stole it."