In Which Nancy Pelosi Takes a Swing

Inside the Capitol Hill meeting there were nearly two hundred Democratic members of Congress—outside in the basement hallway with pipes stretched overhead, there were just over a hundred members of the press. They were waiting for members of Congress to slip out, and as they did they were swarmed with microphones.

That was how the impeachment dam broke, with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi telling her troops that she would direct the chairs of the six committees of jurisdiction to proceed with their investigations “under the impeachment inquiry umbrella.” Pelosi announced, for the first time, that she was officially supporting that inquiry. The meeting took place behind closed doors, but members of Congress inside the room spoke to Playboy on background, outlining the scene.

Before the meeting with her full caucus, Pelosi spoke to the chairs of the committees and then to her leadership team. A few of those chairs—including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff—walked out of the front door of Pelosi’s office and were surrounded by reporters who peppered them with questions that went unanswered. But there is an elevator in the Speaker’s office that empties in the basement, so some managed to escape the gaggle of press; a reporter next to me compared the scene to the Running of the Bulls.

Inside the closed meeting, Foreign Affair Committee Chairman Eliot Engel told members that he hoped to investigate whether Trump’s private lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, was directed by Trump to go to Ukraine and whether the State Department was aiding him with political purposes. He said that he expects to issue a subpoena to the State Department this week to find out whether Trump investigated the State Department in his scheme. Engel told the Democrats “People are coming out of the woodwork like you wouldn’t believe to spill their guts on this.”

Pelosi had no choice, she was losing the battle of the conversation—most of her troops openly backed an impeachment inquiry. I had a running bet that Pelosi would open a special committee on impeachment. Instead she told Democrats that she would be directing the committee chairs. It was a brilliant play: if Pelosi had created a special committee, she would have taken the gavel of impeachment from the House Judiciary Committee, which has been the spear in the impeachment battle. Several Democratic aides under members of Congress on the Judiciary Committee have been pushed back over the past few weeks each time I raised the possibility of a special committee on impeachment. Two weeks ago, at the Democratic Debate in Houston, I asked Rep. Al Green about the possibility of a select committee, and he told me “I don’t know about the select committee, I do know this: that we’re making much more of the process than we have to.”

The impeachment inquiry centers around Donald Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky. Trump asked Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s son’s role on the board of a Ukrainian company as it relates to Joe Biden. Trump insists that Joe Biden bribed the Ukrainains to stop investigating his son. But Democrats read the reports as Trump asking a foreign leader to dig up dirt on his political opponent.

Republican Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, who has been one of Trump’s most outspoken allies in the House, shook his head at the Democrats’ interpretation. When asked if he has any concerns about Biden’s call with Zelensky, Jordan told Playboy, “nope. But I have concerns about what Joe Biden and Hunter Biden did.” Asked if he believes the Democrats’ impeachment push helps Donald Trump’s chances of re-election, Jordan said “I don’t worry about that. I think the president’s going to win. I think he’s going to win. But I don’t worry about that, I worry about doing the right thing and getting to the truth, and the right thing is certainly not what the Speaker, the Democrats are trying to do.”

The House will trudge toward impeachment; they have been trudging toward it for months but the pace is quickening. To try to stifle the reports around the Ukraine call and the whistleblower complaint, the White House released the transcript of Trump’s call with President Zelensky but they botched the roll-out and even sent their talking points to some Democratic offices.

Democratic aides on Capitol Hill repeatedly stressed to Playboy that the call was a summary put out by the most dishonest White House in recent memory and was therefore untrustworthy. But the summary of the call was still damning, in his conversation with Zelensky, Trump asks the foriegn leader a number of times if he can help dig up dirt on Joe Biden, once saying, “I would like you to do us a favor.”

The main issue in this unfolding story is the sheer incompetence of the White House operation. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, routinely goes on prime time television shows and rambles like a drunk and spills inside information about his dealings with the White House. The president tweets and confuses himself and rants about whatever he saw on Fox News. It’s hard to imagine that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue could manage this any worse, but it’s also hard to imagine that they’ll handle it any better in the future.

After the transcript-or-maybe-summary was released, Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland told me “the entire conversation was a shake-down. The entire purpose of the conversation was to get the Ukranian president to agree that he would go after the Biden family.”

Congress is preparing to go on a two-week recess, that will act as a sort of break in the action—consider Muhammad Ali in his corner, breathing heavy with his arms sagging on the ropes before the next brutal round. And the next round will be brutal. When lawmakers return to Washington, the Democrats will be hell-bent on impeaching the president now that their party is formed behind it. Eventually, the great fight will shift to the Senate where the Republican-controlled chamber will be tasked with determining the future of the presidency.