The Note: Democrats tiptoe toward impeachment
The TAKE with Rick Klein
Their leaders don't want to go there, and it's still Republicans talking more about the possibility than Democrats.
But the sheer range of issues raised by President Donald Trump's behavior, and the multiple conflicts sparked between the executive and legislative branches, leave Democrats in Congress pursuing a diminishing range of options -- with impeachment closer to being the possible final answer.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that Trump's actions are making him "self-impeachable," suggesting that the president is goading Democrats into taking a path they don't want to follow.
Presidents don't impeach themselves, of course. But Democrats aren't getting what they want: There's limited or no congressional access to top administration officials, no chance to review the president's tax returns and now there's an attorney general on the verge of being held in contempt of Congress.
One piece of the calculation for Democrats going forward: If they're serious about providing oversight, impeachment proceedings would be a way around the access issues they're confronting.
If this is a constitutional crisis, the Constitution provides a remedy. And that may be the only viable path around the stonewalls.
The RUNDOWN with MaryAlice Parks
As he tends to do, Trump both grossly exaggerated numbers and focused on his executive sensibilities and business savvy at his reelection campaign rally on Wednesday night in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Trump blamed Democrats for holding up additional hurricane relief funding for the Florida panhandle. He blasted them for their effort to include additional funding for Puerto Rico's recovery, too, and claimed -- erroneously -- that the federal government had already given the island of Puerto Rico $91 billion to rebuild after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.
In fact, tallies from The Washington Post show that only about $11 billion has been spent on Puerto Rico and that $41 billion was allocated.
Trump continued, without pause, to argue to his supporters that he has a unique ability to make a deal, seemingly unfazed by a New York Times report on Tuesday that indicated he lost more than $1 billion from 1985 to 1994, according to an analysis of his official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax forms.
The details in his stories from the podium in Florida were fuzzy, to say the least. He talked of an unnamed country and said in "a 10-minute" call he was able to convince the unnamed political leader to pay the United States more for defense.
Maybe a little ironically, he applauded the crowd for being good people who pay their taxes, when The New York Times article indicated he did not pay any taxes in eight of the 10 years analyzed by the newspaper due to his financial losses.
The TIP with John Verhovek
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who earned the repeated scorn of the president who appointed him, said this week that he hasn't made a "formal announcement" about whether or not he will run for his old Senate seat, but added that he is "interested in the issues."
Alabama, currently represented by Democratic Sen. Doug Jones after his stunning 2017 victory over Republican Roy Moore, will play host to one of the most competitive Senate races in the country in 2020.
But a Sessions candidacy offers more than a viable Republican candidate to unseat Jones, it raises a host of awkward questions about what the president would do to see his former cabinet member back in the U.S. Senate. After months of tormenting him and venting frustration, would Trump campaign for Sessions, a man whose Justice Department he called a "total joke"?
THE PLAYLIST
ABC News' "Start Here" podcast. Thursday morning's episode features ABC News' Trish Turner, who breaks down the implications of the House Judiciary Committee vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress. Then,ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl explains the investigation by The New York Times into massive financial losses by Trump during the 1980s and 1990s. And ABC News Senior Washington Reporter Devin Dwyer tells us why you'll soon be seeing prices attached to prescription drug ads on TV. http://apple.co/2HPocUL
ABC News' "Powerhouse Politics" podcast. As President Donald Trump's war with House Democrats intensifies, former Rep. Tom Davis weighs in as a former Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee. He joins the Powerhouse Politics podcast on Wednesday and gives his insights on the battle plan and the fallout on the White House versus Democrats on the Hill. https://apple.co/2Zfz5nD
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY
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