"Total panic" as "shell-shocked" White House struggles to find impeachment footing

White House officials were scrambling to figure out how to counter the renewed Democratic impeachment push Thursday, with one source familiar with the situation describing a sense of “total panic” over the past week at the lack of a plan to address the new reality.

There appears to be rising “anxiety, unease, and concern” — as one person close to the White House described the mood in the West Wing — that the whistleblower’s allegations could seriously wound the president and some of those around him. “There’s not a lot of confidence that there’s no there there,” this person said…

Another person familiar with the discussions described the mood inside the White House as “shell-shocked,” with increasing wariness that as this impeachment inquiry drags out, the likelihood increases that the president could respond erratically and become “unmanageable.”