Here’s a question some Democratic members of Congress from Maryland say they hear from constituents.

When are you going to impeach the president?

The answer is to politely explain that impeachment is a political process, and, right now, Republicans control both the House and Senate.

So, no, impeachment is not on the agenda in 2026. It should be as Democrats campaign to take control of Congress in 2027.

If you watched the video released last week of former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s closed-door testimony before Congress, there’s ample reason to suspect President Donald Trump still could face criminal charges for the Jan. 6 insurrection, five years ago.

“The evidence here made clear that President Trump was, by a large measure, the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy,” Smith testified.

But you don’t have to revisit that infamy to get to impeachment. Democrats should campaign on the culture of lawlessness and corruption that Trump brought into the White House and focus on his confederacy of rogues.

The overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Saturday is hard to square with American law. No one should feel sympathy for Maduro, a brutal dictator who’s led his country to ruin.

No one, however, voted for a return to 19th-century gunboat diplomacy.

“This act of war is a grave abuse of power by the president,” U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said.

“This is about trying to grab Venezuela’s oil for Trump’s billionaire buddies. Congress must not abdicate its constitutional authority and allow control of the world’s most powerful military to fall into just one set of hands,” the Democratic senator said.

Read More

What profit if Maryland Democrats gain a seat, but lose their souls?

Nov 30, 2025

Abdicate, they will. Republicans show zero interest in checking the president, seeing him as a means to their own ends.

Democrats have been wary of campaigning under the banner, “Impeach Trump: Third Time’s the Charm!” There has been a sense that unleashing it as a political weapon carries risk.

For some, Venezuela may change that.

“Let’s be clear, invading and running another country without a congressional declaration of war is an impeachable offense,” Rep. April McClain Delaney said Monday on X.

Yet the “I” word should be about more than just the man in the Oval Office.

The president shows little interest in what Congress does with Republicans in charge. If the majority flips in November, he’s likely to forget it exists.

While Trump doodles his name on everything within reach, builds monuments to his ego and pardons fellow felons and reprobates, Democrats can concentrate on figures in his cabinet.

They should be impeachment targets if Democrats regain control for the final two years of Trump’s term. They’re the ones operating under executive powers approved by a sympathetic U.S. Supreme Court.

There is already plenty to talk about.

Van Hollen called out OMB Secretary Russell Vought as the chief engineer of a scheme to break Watergate-era limits on presidential power, dismantling federal agencies and ignoring spending priorities created by Congress.

U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks spent her first year in office building a case against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In December, she and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon released an update to their midyear report on Kennedy chaos in American healthcare, releasing 28 more bullet points of wrongheadedness, rule violations and potential corruption. She’s called for him to resign or be fired.

Rep. Sarah Elfreth, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, called on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign after he violated military regulations with his careless discussion of classified information about a military strike in Yemen.

No Maryland Democrat is more on the trail of Trump shamfuggery than Rep. Jamie Raskin.

The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee and a top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, he plays watchdog while Republicans play ostrich.

He’s scourged FBI Director Kash Patel for his embrace of the Jan. 6 mob, mishandling files on the sex ring run by the late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, and using a $62 million FBI jet to fly himself, golfing buddies and his girlfriend on vacation joyrides.

“We are baffled and outraged by your repeated shameless and brazen abuse of your position as FBI director,“ the Montgomery County Democrat wrote. ”This alone is a fireable offense."

Raskin called for an investigation of Attorney General Pam Bondi for insider trading after she sold Trump Media stock in April, narrowly dodging the stock market dive triggered by tariff announcements.

“Attorney General Bondi’s actions now force us to confront the possibility that our country’s chief federal law enforcement officer may have broken the law,” Raskin wrote.

From cryptocurrency, shady business deals and billionaire donations to ignoring laws and using government to attack political enemies, acts of corruption already top 50, according to the progressive nonprofit Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington.

How comfortable Democrats will be uttering the “I” word is unclear remains to been seen. A Michigan Democrat introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth over the use of deadly force in attacking what the administration claimed were drug-smuggling boats.

No one has supported it.

There is hope that mounting allegations of misconduct will prompt the worst figures to step down. The Venezuelan misadventure is reason to doubt that will happen.

We are in a period of transition. There is no going back to the days before Trump, and old political rules are as useful as a pile of crab shells after a Fourth of July picnic.

Fifty-four members of Congress are retiring. Maryland’s senior Democrat, 86-year-old Rep. Steny Hoyer, has yet to announce plans for November. Rep. Kweisi Mfume is 77.

Even if both win another term, change is inevitable. Billionaire David Trone wants his old job in the 6th District back, positioning himself as a harsher Trump critic than McClain-Delaney, his successor.

Mid-decade redistricting could put Rep. Andy Harris, the Eastern Shore Republican, into a cross-Chesapeake match against Hoyer in Southern Maryland, Elfreth in Annapolis or Johnny Olszewski Jr. in Baltimore County.

Democrats in Maryland and beyond should get busy laying out the case against corruption.

And they shouldn’t fear invoking the threat of impeachment.