Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meets with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 23, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

So as we go into the 118th week of the Democrat attempt to impeach Donald Trump, there was a glimmer of hope that it might be coming to an end. There are less than a half-dozen witnesses yet to be called. Then all that remains is for morbidly obese, wheezing Jerry Nadler to remain conscious long enough to oversee the writing of articles of impeachment and a pro-forma party-line vote that will send the action on to the Senate. Now that hope seems to be shattered.

Nancy Pelosi was on Face the Nation and Margaret Brennan asked her if the impeachment will wind up in December.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you expect that to be wrapped up before the end of the year?

SPEAKER PELOSI: I have no idea. Again, I–

MARGARET BRENNAN: No timetable for that?

SPEAKER PELOSI: No, I mean, it is self-evident that we have open hearings for the next week. I don’t know if there are any beyond that. Then we’re out for Thanksgiving. Doesn’t mean depositions couldn’t be taken during that time. And then when we come back by then, maybe a decision or maybe they have more hearings. And then I have six committees who have been working on all of this, and those six chairmen have been very involved in what the, how we will proceed.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Does that mean that’ll be potentially included in an impeachment that you might broaden this beyond the issue related to Ukraine?

SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, that- that it’s- not up for me. That’s what the facts will determine. We are also proceeding in the courts. And this week we had another powerful decision by a court. Now it is- the president is appealing it to the Supreme Court that the president should release his financial documents. We’ve won all of the cases in the court on this. Roger Stone, what seven counts, was it that he was found guilty? Manafort is in prison. Michael Cohen, the president’s lawyer, is in prison. There’s so much wrongdoing attached with all of this. But we have to keep it very precise in terms of the president of the United States and the Constitution of the United States. And that is what this is about. And it’s very serious. And none of us came here to impeach a president. This is very sad. At the same time, as I say, we’re trying to pass a trade bill, pass our appropriations bills, Voting Rights Act. Whether it’s background checks, climate action now, equal pay for equal work, raising the minimum wage, all of the issues that we’re working on for the good of the American people. So this isn’t- while this is a concentration of our conversation here, it’s not what we do in a day.

I’d just like to take a moment and observe that the CBS transcript is utter sh**. There are extensive statements by Pelosi that are omitted and which obscure just how batty she is.

According to her, several other committees are also involved in gathering “impeachment evidence,” and the meisterwerk of those brainiacs will, indeed, end up in front of Fat Jerry.

The very fact that Pelosi doesn’t see an end to this process means that they might very well never vote on articles of impeachment. It is hard to believe that the Democrats want this to carry over into the 2020 election season. If it does, it will suck all the air out of the Democrat primaries and focus it on President Trump’s fight with the Democrats. Based on what we saw of the Schiff-show this week, that is not a look the Democrat hierarchy is going to want. It will also lock the Senate in place for the duration of the “trial.” Not very many members of the Senate are going to want that. None of this is to say it won’t happen, but only to point out that dragging the process out will probably end up doing more damage to Democrats than to Trump.

During the 1998 impeachment of President Clinton, the Democrats tried to negotiate a middle ground where the House would vote to “censure” Clinton for his conduct and not drive on with a full-blown impeachment. One can’t help but wonder if that is what the Democrats may pull out of the bag here. It would give them some cover with their radical base (“we did something”) and would end the process without the Senate calling Hunter Biden and Eric Ciaramella and a host of other witnesses, possibly including Adam Schiff, which the Democrats would rather not see happen.