41 Minutes With … Tom Steyer

The billionaire can’t believe you’re ready to give up on impeachment.

- Gabriel Debenedetti

TOM STEYER, the Democratic megadonor turned impeachment activist, has a distinct look when he thinks he’s saying something so obvious it might be embarrassing for you if you’re not keeping up. He smiles a little, his eyebrows shoot up his forehead, and he tilts his head back as if he’s expecting a punch line.

It’s been two days since the attorney general’s summary of Robert Mueller’s report went public, and Steyer is using this look a lot. I’m asking if his strategy has changed now that we know Mueller didn’t find evidence of Trump-campaign collusion with Russia, and he’s not having it.

“We’ve said from the beginning this isn’t about the Mueller report; this is a broad sense of criminality,” he says, on the edge of exasperation. We’re sitting across from each other in big armchairs in a wood-paneled meeting room in the back of a D.C. hotel, six blocks from the White House and five from where Mueller went to church after delivering his report. Jazz is playing, and Steyer, wearing his go-to red tartan tie, is full of defiant energy. “We’ve said that for over a year!”

Steyer, 61, wasn’t always Mr. Impeachment. The longtime hedge-fund manager and environmentalist spent years pouring his own money into politics, including more than $90 million during the 2016 election cycle. He started pressuring Democrats to get rid of Trump in October 2017, when he founded a political group called Need to Impeach. The group has built a list of 7.7 million supporters at last count, held town-hall events across the country, and run direct-to-camera TV ads making the case, all of which has eaten about $50 million of his $1.6 billion net worth.