“We’re only a few weeks — less than 20 weeks from the election — and we need to be concentrating on winning,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), adding, “We don’t need to get bogged down in another impeachment.”

“I do think we ought to hold hearings and bring as much of the information to the public as possible between now and whenever. But I don’t think we ought to go any further,” Cleaver added.

In short, Democrats are balancing a desperate desire to defend institutions they say are being threatened by Trump with concerns that a push to investigate will detract from other urgent national concerns and potentially undermine their own political prospects — and could ultimately be fruitless with the election a few months away…

Many Democrats in the caucus have “impeachment fatigue” as one senior aide put it. And while all Democrats say they want to hold the president accountable, they also don’t want to lose sight of the ultimate goal — booting Trump out of the White House. Meanwhile, some of their decisions may be made for them, as the Supreme Court weighs cases that could supercharge long-stalled investigations, or sap their energy altogether.