President Donald Trump reportedly isn’t interested in putting up a tough fight against House Democrats’ move toward impeaching him for an unprecedented second time, unlike during last year’s impeachment saga.
A White House official told Politico that Trump knows the GOP-controlled Senate will keep him safe, and that he has also become distrustful of White House Counsel Pat Cipollone.
“We’re not building out an aggressive operation to combat these impeachment charges,” the official said. “It’s just logistically impossible. Counsel’s office has hollowed out obviously, Cipollone hasn’t been in the President’s circle.”
On Monday, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) introduced his and Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI), Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Jerrold Nadler’s (D-NY) article of impeachment that charged Trump with “incitement of insurrection” after the President encouraged his followers to storm the Capitol last week. Politico reported that a majority of the House backs the article, which has at least 218 cosponsors.
Trump’s reported response to potentially getting impeached again marks a startling contrast to his aggressive efforts to defend himself from impeachment last year over his pressure campaign against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
