Byron York:
“…The Democrats who impeached President Trump knew they did not have a prayer of removing him from office, but they also knew impeachment might have another effect: to weaken the president and reduce his chances of winning reelection in November.
It was an unprecedented plan, an election-year gambit in which Democrats used the House of Representatives’s constitutional power of impeachment as perhaps the most audacious opposition research maneuver of all time.
But will it work?…
…impeachment was big, and. even if it does fade from memory, Trump appears determined to keep it alive.
“The radical Left’s pathetic partisan crusade has completely failed and utterly backfired,” the president told a crowd of 12,000 at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, on the eve of that state’s primary. “While the extreme Left has been wasting America’s time with this vile hoax, we’ve been killing terrorists, creating jobs, raising wages, enacting fair trade deals, securing our borders, and lifting up citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed.”
After his “full, complete, and absolute total acquittal,” Trump will not let voters forget what Democrats did. But Trump’s purpose is not only to vent. On the campaign trail in the coming months, he will take care to place the Democratic impeachment in the context of his administration’s accomplishments, economic and otherwise.
By the way, Trump drew a capacity crowd of 12,000 in New Hampshire, dwarfing any crowd drawn by Democrats in their hotly contested primary. He did the same thing in Iowa just before the caucuses, speaking to a packed house of more than 7,000 in Des Moines.
In Iowa, Trump also put impeachment in context: He is doing the country’s work while Democrats are consumed with partisan rage.
“We’re having probably the best years that we’ve ever had in the history of our country, and I just got impeached!” Trump said. “Can you believe these people? I got impeached!”