Democrats cry wolf on Trump-Ukraine

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That is the motto of congressional Democrats when it comes to getting President Donald Trump.

They want to make him a one-term president — and if they can find a way to force him out of office before the 2020 election, all the better.

Impeaching Trump has been the Democrats’ monomania ever since they took control of the House of Representatives following the 2018 midterms. They thought they could get Trump on Russian collusion, and they also eyed an opportunity to impeach Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh just for good measure.

Neither approach proved to be very fruitful. After more than two years of screaming bloody murder about Trump being a puppet of Vladimir Putin, the Muller report proved to be a complete dud; and the effort to smear Kavanaugh a second time as a means to further undermine the president has petered out. This on top of the scores of other inquiries House Democrats have feverishly plotted, digging into nearly every aspect of Trump’s private and political life.

Undaunted by their past misfires, congressional Democrats now think they have found Willy Wonka’s golden ticket with Trump-Ukraine.

In their latest attempt to undo the 2016 presidential election simply because they despise the current occupant of the Oval Office, it is Democrats’ general contention that Trump sought to pressure Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election by looking into shady Biden family dealings and then sought to cover it up.

Further, congressional Democrats are so sure they have Trump’s number this go-round that they intend to move with lightning speed on impeachment, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has tapped House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to lead the charge for now. Schiff is the Democrats’ go-to carnival barker when it comes to spreading copious amounts of disinformation. The media hangs on Schiff’s every word and rarely questions his motives — even after he infamously said there was “ample evidence of collusion in plain sight” between Trump and Russia.

One could certainly argue that Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was ham-handed and ill-advised — but to claim it’s illegal and thus warrants a fast-tracked impeachment seems like wishful thinking, and is an enormous political gamble.

Legally speaking, there does not appear to be any promises or threats or any kind of quid pro quo on Trump’s part. Further, the Ukrainians weren’t even aware that U.S. military aid was being held up at the time. As for campaign finance violations, the Department of Justice has already thrown cold water on that. Further, if Trump is engaged in a cover-up, he’s doing a terrible job of it by taking the unprecedented step of making not only the call public, but also the whistleblower complaint. For those who want to delve into allegations of secret servers, Trump’s predecessors have engaged in similar actions.

What should give the American public and some Democrats great pause is that the process for whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress might have been altered to allow secondhand and even thirdhand information to suffice. Further, the whistleblower complaint reads more like a premeditated political set-up from a leaker than the misgivings of a concerned citizen worried about potential White House wrongdoings. But the real kicker, if you want to be cynical, is that Democrats are accusing Trump of engaging in the very same activity with Ukraine in which they were involved in 2016 and again in 2018.

No one knows how this will ultimately pan out. There are significant political risks for both parties. But here’s what we do know.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has to be downright giddy. She is currently surging in the Democratic presidential polls, and she gets to scream at Trump while defending her primary opponent Joe Biden to the teeth, yet privately hoping this ordeal sinks Biden and Trump as well.

When all is said and done, if persuadable voters (independents, swing-state voters) see this as nothing more than congressional Democrats crying wolf for the umpteenth time, engaging in a partisan exercise to appease a rabid base who refuses to accept Trump as a legitimate president, then Trump will be reelected in 2020. Further still, the House could come into play as well, when it wasn’t before this gambit.

This is a high-risk game Democrats are playing, and they’re going all-in to take out Trump.

Ford O’Connell served as director of rural outreach for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign; he runs a political consulting business, is an adjunct professor at The George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, and is a regular commentator on FOX Business. O’Connell is also an attorney. Follow him on Twitter @FordOConnell.