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The Pelosi Gambit
How the Nancy Pelosi used Sun Tzu to win the first battle of the impeachment war
This week the House of Representatives formally delivered two articles of impeachment against Pres. Donald Trump to the Senate. After more than a month of waiting, the country and the world will now consider the impeachment trial of an American president for only the third time in history. During that wait House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s strategy was almost uniformly condemned as a mistake. Republicans saw it as indecision, the result of a “rushed and biased impeachment process.” It was a strategy based on pressuring Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell into negotiations of the Senate process for impeachment. Sen. McConnell himself seemed to waylay this strategy by explicitly stating he was coordinating directly with the White House on the Senate’s approach to the trial. And while most Republicans continued to question process, the President questioned the legal foundations of impeachment itself. Between the support of his base and the loyalty of Senate Republicans everyone on the Right saw Pelosi’s strategy as laughable.
More importantly, there was as much concern in her strategy amongst Democrats as there was ridicule from Republicans. Her…
