WASHINGTON — House Democrats, back on their heels after President Donald Trump’s acquittal of impeachment charges, wrestled Thursday with a question that could determine their party’s fate in November: Now what?As Trump took an ostentatious victory lap at the White House, Democrats were grappling with how to balance their policy agenda and their determination to continue aggressive investigations of a president they view as a threat to the country.With just five months left in the legislative year and nine before the elections, Democrats concede they have to make some tough decisions.”It’s something we need to talk about,” said Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., the chairman of the House Budget Committee. He said that the issue came up during the weekly closed-door meeting of committee leaders.Democrats believe they won back the House majority in 2018 with a laser focus on health care and the economy. But they are also revolted by an unrepentant president and reluctant to abandon investigations into his conduct that might yield evidence of wrongdoing. With Trump emboldened by his acquittal, some say investigating him is more important than ever.Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemed ready to make a pivot Thursday, less than 24 hours after the Senate verdict that he was not guilty ended a five-month impeachment drama that consumed the Capitol.At her weekly news conference, Pelosi spent the bulk of her opening remarks talking about Trump’s State of the Union address — “appalling,” she said — and pushing back on his claims that he is responsible for the nation’s economic turnaround.But she also vowed not to let up on oversight of his policies and personal conduct.”We will continue to do our oversight to protect and defend the Constitution,” Pelosi said.Putting that into practice may prove fraught. Democratic leaders must decide in the coming days whether to carry on with the investigation into Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, which led the House to impeach the president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.The biggest question at the moment is whether to issue a subpoena for John Bolton, the former national security adviser, after senators refused to consider new testimony in the impeachment trial. Doing so could yield damaging new information, but it also risks making Democrats look like sore losers.On Wednesday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the Judiciary Committee chairman and an impeachment manager, said that the House should subpoena Bolton, who has written a tell-all book that contains a direct account of Trump’s decision to leverage nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine in exchange for the investigations.But Democrats also recognize that Bolton may be less receptive to speaking to the House now that Trump has been acquitted. On Thursday, neither Pelosi nor Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, the House Intelligence Committee chairman and the leader of the impeachment prosecution team, would say what they intend to do.”We really haven’t made any decisions yet,” Schiff said.Some of the Democrats’ long-running investigations into Trump are continuing quietly, and others are proceeding in the federal courts, where the House is party to a handful of consequential legal fights over access to Trump’s tax returns, other financial information and witness testimony and documents related to Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.Several of the fights could go to the Supreme Court and perhaps be decided before November’s elections. If Democrats were to win access, say, to Trump’s federal tax returns, or a court forced Don McGahn, the former White House counsel, to testify about Trump’s attempts to thwart the Russia investigation, it could produce a new round of high-profile hearings about whether the president had broken the law — an inquiry that would surely reverberate in the presidential campaign.Lower-profile work by the House Oversight and Reform, Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees has scrutinized the Trump administration’s border policies, the decision to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census, politicization of the State Department and the responses to devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean.But the question is one of emphasis, and how Democrats answer it could shape voters’ views of them heading into the next election. Rep. Donna Shalala, D-Fla., who served as health secretary to President Bill Clinton, repeated a single phrase when asked what Democrats should do next.”Health care, health care, health care,” said Shalala, who is working on legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs and to end surprise medical billing.As is the case with most intraparty Democratic debates, moderates and progressives fall into different camps. Moderates want to talk to voters about “kitchen table” issues. Progressives want to send the message that the House will continue to act as a check on a president clearly emboldened by his acquittal.”People in Wisconsin, people in Michigan, people in Ohio, people in Pennsylvania, people in North Carolina, they’re going to vote for their member of Congress or a president based on what that party is focused on,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, a centrist Democrat from Ohio. “They are focused on their own economic situation. They will punish a party that is not focused on those issues.”But progressives like Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Jamie Raskin of Maryland said that Democrats should redouble their efforts to rein in Trump.”We must make sure that this administration does not continue to break the law,” Omar said.Raskin framed it this way: “We have the exact same oversight duties and powers as we did before. He also has not won himself the right to commit high crimes and misdemeanors against the Constitution and the people.”Even so, there were signs Thursday that the House’s marquee inquiries will shift into a lower gear. Norman L. Eisen and Barry H. Berke, who served as special counsels to the Judiciary Committee for its long-running abuse of power investigation and then formed part of its core impeachment team, are both expected to depart in the coming weeks.The internal discussion over next steps comes as the relationship between Trump and Pelosi has hit a new low, raising questions about whether it is even possible for them to work together on legislative matters. Both the president and the speaker have said that they want legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs and to fix the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.But if the events of Thursday were any guide, they can barely stand to be in the same room with one another. At a White House celebration of his acquittal, Trump boasted about having taken a shot at Pelosi during the National Prayer Breakfast earlier that day.”I had Nancy Pelosi sitting four seats away, and I said things that a lot of people wouldn’t have said,” Trump said. “But I meant every one of them.”At the Capitol, Pelosi shot back, saying Trump looked “a little sedated” at the State of the Union. “That was not a State of the Union,” she said. “That was his state of his mind.”As Democrats contemplated the road ahead, Republicans were giddy, portraying the House’s failed impeachment case as a misguided overreach.Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, called impeachment “a colossal political mistake.” Americans, he said, “are more likely to focus at this point and for the rest of the year on, what kind of shape is the country in? How are you feeling about things? Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
