Democrats must move quickly on impeachment to maximize the political damage they can do to President Donald Trump, according to Washington Free Beacon founding editor Matthew Continetti.
Polling suggests that support for impeachment has grown since House Democrats launched a formal impeachment inquiry in September, but Continetti said the momentum could ebb if the party does not act quickly. He argued that Democrats cannot allow themselves to get bogged down in delays, pointing to the State Department potentially restricting access to witnesses. Critics of the impeachment process will also attempt to redirect attention to former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, which would further impede the investigation.
"They need to do this quickly in order to inflict maximum damage on President Trump," Continetti said during an appearance on Fox News's Special Report.
He added that while the Democrats know they will not have enough support in the Republican-controlled Senate to remove Trump from office, they can weaken his position going into the 2020 election.
"This is a bank shot impeachment. The Democrats know that with what they have now, they are not going to remove Donald Trump from office," Continetti said. "What they need to do is inflict maximum damage on him in order to, basically, bring out either a Republican challenger or a strong third party movement in 2020."
Democrats initiated the impeachment process following a whistleblower complaint against President Trump over a phone call he had with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. During the phone call, Trump asked Zelensky to "look into" Hunter Biden's lucrative appointment to the board of the nation's largest gas company while his father served in the Obama administration.