WASHINGTON, D.C. — Just a week into it, rumor on the Hill is that Democrats are quietly building an alliance with key Republicans to lay the ground work for impeaching the President of the United States.
“It is imperative that we wrest control of the country’s executive branch away from the current president,” one Democratic aide told reporters in an anonymous email, “because this man has no business being there, and besides, he didn’t get more votes than Hillary Clinton.”
One Democratic staffer said that many people both on the left and right side of the aisle wanted to give the new president a chance. The aide said that many closed door, backroom meetings were held between Republicans and Democrats who were concerned about the tone and rhetoric from the new administration’s transition team in the run-up to being sworn into office. It was decided in almost all of the secret meetings that congress members would give the new presidential team a few weeks to settle in before any judgments were made.
But the first week has been so tumultuous, say aides, that the time table has been considerably accelerated.
“The weird and angry inaugural address was our first clue,” one staffer said, “and then all the damn executive orders started coming. A National Day of Patriotic Devotion? That’s some nationalist bullshit there. And then the Muslim ban? Get the fuck out of here.”
Democrats and Republicans are now reportedly working quickly but quietly on impeachment papers, anticipating that one of the many conflicts of interest that seem ready to ensnare the administration will trip them up. Aides are telling the media that even if conflicts of interest don’t trip the administration up, the 25th Amendment’s clause pertaining to the president needing to be of sound mind might.
“Clearly the whole team is more than a few fries short of a Happy Meal,” a congressional Democrat told one newspaper off the record, “and they’re all a ticking time bomb. We’re just hoping we can get the current president impeached before he starts an all out religious holy war.”
Ultimately, the Democrats who are working back channels with the GOP understand that they’re going to be stuck with a Republican president, one way or the other. They just want the current president out so they can focus on blocking a broader conservative president’s agenda. Staffers say they want sanity back in the White House first, and then they can deal with the next steps.
“Obviously, President Bannon is not fit for the job,” one Democrat said, “and he simply must go.”
Follow James on Twitter @JamboSchlarmbo.
