I think this position is defensible on the merits but it comes off as too clever by half, an attempt to please both sides that’ll end up pleasing neither.

This guy comes from a district in Maine that Trump won by 10 points three years ago. Does he really think Republicans there will cut him a break because he opposed removing the president from office for obstruction of Congress but supported doing so for abuse of power, which is the core claim in the Ukraine matter?

He can’t possibly think that. Either this reflects Jared Golden’s honest view of the impeachment case against Trump or he wanted to vote no on both articles and Pelosi’s team told him “Don’t even think about it.”

In a four-page formal statement to be placed in the congressional record, Golden said the House investigation “clearly” unearthed evidence that Trump and administration officials used the power of the presidency in an attempt to damage his political opponent, which crossed a “red line” and constituted an impeachable offense.

“I simply decided to do what I believe is in the best interest of the country, regardless of the politics,” Golden said. “The president is doing the exact opposite. I find that the evidence in this is indisputable.”

Golden said he chose not to support the second article on obstructing Congress because House Democrats had not reached the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and there are unanswered questions surrounding the charge. He also said the House has not exhausted all options before impeachment, including recourse through the courts.

He won his seat by a point last fall and has every reason to believe he’ll be nuked next fall with Trump on the ballot, impeachment or no impeachment. But so did Joe Cunningham, Ben McAdams, and Kendra Horn, all of whom also represent solid red districts and they voted to impeach. The thing they all have in common is youth: Golden is just 37 and can continue to work for his party in areas outside Congress provided he passes the litmus test here. In the end, every Democrat from a very red district had only two options, vote to impeach or take the Jeff Van Drew path out of the party. Presumably they decided they couldn’t go the latter route for reasons of principle, because they don’t support the GOP agenda. I can’t think of an electoral reason why they’d refrain, knowing that Trump is standing by to embrace them and push the local Republican Party in their district to support them as nominee ahead of 2020.

Like I say, Golden’s position is defensible — enough so that I’m surprised Cunningham and the rest didn’t make the same move. The problem with the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress, is that Democrats didn’t attempt to litigate it in court. They claim White House aides like John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney have a duty to appear when subpoenaed by Congress; Trump claims they don’t per the “absolute immunity” supposedly granted to them by executive privilege. It’s possible (although unlikely, I think) that SCOTUS would have sided with Trump on that, so how can they impeach the president for doing something which the Supreme Court might very well believe is lawful under Article II?

Pelosi and Schiff would answer that it’s for Congress to say what amounts to “obstruction of Congress,” not the Court or anyone else. They’ve decided that “absolute immunity” amounts to obstruction of their constitutional power to impeach. A majority of the House agrees with them. That’s all there is to it. This is between them and Trump, not them, Trump, and SCOTUS. Jared Golden evidently disagrees — and somehow he’s the only member of the caucus who does. Huh.

With all the talk about Democrats from districts won by Trump having to take a tough vote today, what about Republicans from districts won by Hillary Clinton? It’s a tough vote for them too! The reason we don’t hear much about them, though, is that there are only three left in the House after last fall’s wipeout. One is Will Hurd, who’s retiring, the others are John Katko from upstate New York and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. Not surprisingly, both are in the “bad but not impeachable” camp. They need their GOP base to turn out next fall to have any chance at reelection so they have to vote with Trump but they’re going to throw anti-Trump swing voters a bone by breaking with the Republican narrative that the phone call with Zelensky was PERFECT!

Sitting in his Washington office on Tuesday — his 46th birthday — Fitzpatrick said he doesn’t oppose impeachment because he finds Trump’s July 25 phone call in which he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to help his reelection bid indefensible. But, like many of his Republicans colleagues, he opposes the process Democrats took to get there.

“I’ve just been very, very disappointed with how this has transpired because I haven’t reached the conclusion I have because I don’t view the allegation as serious, quite to the contrary,” Fitzpatrick said. “The reason I’m here now is because I thought it was such a serious allegation that was treated in such a fundamentally unserious manner.”

Hillary won Katko’s district by four points and Fitzpatrick’s by just two. Neither is in grave danger from their impeachment vote, one would think.

With Katko and Fitzpatrick sticking with Team Red, there are just three members of the House who remain truly undecided as of 11 a.m. ET on Impeachment Day. One is Ron Kind, who represents a district in Wisconsin that Trump won by five points. No doubt Kind would *like* to vote no but he’d have a tough time justifying that to his base when Cunningham, Horn, and Golden are walking the plank in districts that the president won by 10 points or more. The second is Francis Rooney, whom I wrote about yesterday and who seems highly likely to vote no, which would guarantee unanimous Republican opposition. And the third is good ol’ Tulsi Gabbard, waiting until the last minute to announce whether she has any future in the Democratic Party or if she’s going all-in on independence. Stay tuned.