Trump knows he’s not going to be impeached, and that is indeed a very, very bad thing. It gives him carte blanche: He can seek foreign assistance for his campaign in the next election (as he indicated to George Stephanopoulos he would do, and as Rudy Giuliani is openly doing in Ukraine); he can suppress testimony to Congress (Don McGahn, Corey Lewandowski, and others); he can disregard subpoenas, use the Justice Department as a club against his political enemies, hide potentially illicit financial affairs, cancel primaries, leave our election systems vulnerable and perhaps worse.

It should come as a surprise to no one that Trump would try to collude with a foreign power to get dirt on a political opponent. First off, he’s done it before; and secondly, he’s Trump.

This is only going to get worse. Pelosi’s egregious miscalculation could come back to haunt the Democrats (and our nation) in very serious ways, not just because the speaker has allowed the president to be above the law, but because Trump is now like an unleashed dog who knows that no matter who he bites or what he relieves himself on, there will be no consequences.