Top Judiciary Democrat Dismisses Polls Showing Declining Impeachment Support

Representatives Hakeem Jefferies (D-N.Y.) and Doug Collins (R-Ga.), in Washington in 2018. (Courtesy of jefferies.house.gov)

House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Sunday said he isn’t worried about polls showing declining support for the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry.

“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace asked Jeffries to respond to a poll that found support for impeachment dropped to 48 percent.

“Democrats have been making your best case to the public for two months now, you just finished 30 hours of public hearings and the public apparently isn’t buying it,” Wallace said. He noted that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) previously said the House would seek impeachment with bipartisan support.

“Our job is to follow the facts, apply the law, be guided by the U.S. constitution and present the truth to the American people no matter where it leads, because no one is above the law,” Jeffries told Fox. “That’s what we have been doing, that’s what we are doing, that’s what we’re going to continue to do moving forward.”

Jeffries said that other polls have found higher support for impeaching President Donald Trump.

However, one poll in Wisconsin, considered a key swing state in 2020, showed that support for impeachment has dropped.

The Marquette University Law School Poll found that 40 percent of Wisconsin voters believe the president should be impeached and removed by the Senate, while about 53 percent disagree, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“Republicans have moved 2 or 3 or 4 points in the president’s direction, whether it’s on vote preference or support for him over impeachment,” Marquette Poll director Charles Franklin said. “Democrats have become just a little bit, again 2, 3, 4 points less opposed to the president whether it’s on impeachment or on vote” preference.

Members of the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) have 24 hours to view a draft report on the impeachment probe before a vote will be held on Tuesday night, reported Politico on Saturday.

If the draft is approved on Monday, which is expected if members vote along party lines, it will proceed to the House Judiciary Committee. That committee is scheduled to hold its first impeachment hearing on Dec. 4.

The hearing, titled “The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J. Trump: Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment” will address the historical and constitutional basis of impeachment and the examine the intent and understanding the framers of the Constitution had when they used the term “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) wrote to the White House that he hoped Trump and his counsel will participate in the Judiciary Committee hearing (pdf).

“I have also written to President Trump to remind him that the Committee’s impeachment inquiry rules allow for the president to attend the hearing and for his counsel to question the witness panel,” Nadler wrote. “The Committee looks forward to your participation in the impeachment inquiry as the Committee fulfills its constitutional duties.”