Democratic Party Splitting between White House Meeting and ‘Watergate Hearing’

April 29, 2019 (EIRNS)—The Democratic Party’s split is evident as Congressional leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal prepare for an April 30 White House meeting with President Donald Trump on infrastructure legislation, while a Congressional “impeach him” faction tries to order Attorney General William Barr into a “Watergate hearing” in the House Judiciary Committee.

Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler of New York is demanding that Barr agree to be questioned in the May 2 hearing by Committee lawyers for indefinite periods of time, followed by a closed session with Judiciary members. Barr may refuse to go to this “Watergate” proceeding unless the rules are changed.

Nadler and House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff of California, along with a sizeable number of other Democratic leaders, clearly think attempting impeachment is the road to the White House in 2020, an idea of which the American public will disabuse them. Democrats holding town meetings during the just-ended Congressional recess admit they found impeachment not near the top of even Democratic voters’ agenda. Polls already show most Americans oppose it.

On the other hand, representatives from the AFL-CIO and U.S. Chamber of Commerce expressed optimism, in a conference call with media today, that Trump’s meeting with Schumer, Pelosi and Neal on infrastructure will produce some bipartisan results. Neil Bradley of the Chamber implied that his optimism was based on recent White House meetings. Both said, in answer to a question, that a national infrastructure bank should be part of the “tool kit” for such results. Also on the call was the American Trucking Association.

The overriding problem of the meeting—and of Pelosi’s side of the Democrat split—is the complete lack of an infrastructure mission, like the Moon-Mars mission and its Apollo Project predecessor under President John F. Kennedy, to be the driver for the work. Development of continent-wide new infrastructure with Canada and developing nations to the South, is another vital mission, also unthought of here. While the Congressional Republicans generally continue opposing Federal funding of infrastructure outright, these Democratic leaders are talking about patching up a road to nowhere, when the United States should be linking up with the “New Silk Road” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.